He was tenured in 1997 and promoted to full professor in 2003.
Ciccarelli is currently a professor of Italian in the Department of French and Italian and was director of the College Arts and Humanities Institute from 2000 to 2011.
On April 24, Ciccarelli was named Dean of the Hutton Honors College after a year-long search.
Ciccarelli took over as dean July 1.
Q What initially attracted you to the Hutton Honors College?
A The Hutton students are brilliant, inquisitive students. Planning and organizing the academic life of such a student cohort is certainly a major part of the attraction. Attempting to make the Hutton College even stronger in terms of academic offerings and activities is an ulterior challenge that I take on with great pleasure.
Q What are your goals for the Hutton Honors College? What do you hope to change and/or improve?
A The HHC has a remarkable reputation and tradition. My predecessors have done a fantastic job, beginning with Fritz Breithaupt and Matt Auer , all the way down to Jean Robinson and Karen Hanson . They are all successful administrators here at IU or elsewhere.
To improve any aspect of it will be very hard, highly demanding. Nonetheless, I do have goals. One of them is to broaden the course offering of the Hutton College. This is a first step to reach out to excellent students who risk being left out of Hutton because of their schools’ requirements. This is a very exciting moment for our campus.
Q How do IU’s plans align with those of the Honors College?
A Under President McRobbie we have seen the birth of several new schools, like the School of Public Health, Global and International Studies, the School of Media, as well as a new comprehensive strategic academic plan solicited by Provost Robel. The main aspect of this plan stresses the strength of IU liberal arts education, while addressing the importance of cooperation amongst units and the need for interdisciplinary courses that address the social, scientific and cultural changes of a global world. The HHC is the perfect school to offer interdisciplinary classes that, while preserving IU’s strong liberal art tradition, reach out to other disciplines.
Q Will you continue teaching though you are now Dean of the Hutton Honors College?
A Yes, I will try to teach for the Honors College every year, and, possibly, one course for my home department, French and Italian, as well. This coming fall, I will teach an Honors course on “World War I and Its Legacy,” an interdisciplinary class that will examine the historical, cultural and artistic events that precede, surround and derive from WWI.
Q How do you hope to make the Hutton Honors College experience more valuable for its students?
A We hope to accomplish this through courses that offer students more and more exciting learning opportunities, regardless of their major or school of choice, the amplification of extra academic activities such as special lectures and conferences from major speakers devoted to the Honors students, the improvement of their research experience with IU professors, the exploration of our state-of-the art campus’ facilities and venues like the IU Art Museum, the Lilly Library, the IU Cinema, theater and, naturally, the music offerings, and the implementation of a broad, international experience in cooperation with IU’s first-class International Studies Program.
Q How do you plan to reach out to Hutton Honors students?
A First of all, I plan to hold open meetings for all our HHC students during the academic year. I also intend to form, soon, two internal students boards : a board of seniors to coordinate the relation with recent graduates , and a board of HHC students to plan, organize and coordinate our activities.
Q What does being at Indiana University mean to you?
A I can only be thankful to IU for having allowed me to thrive as a scholar, teacher and as an administrator and, ultimately, as a member of a great community. We often think of Bloomington as a small town — and it is, geographically. But it is also a place that offers so much more than its actual size and, in fact, thanks to the excellence of IU, it creates as many opportunities for first-rate world scientific and cultural debates as large cities.
