Villanova welcomes six new Ennis Fellows to the Core Humanities Program

Six talented new teachers received Ennis Fellowships this year. Paul Townend, Ph.D., Mary Agnes Edsall, Ph.D., Louis Hamilton, Ph.D., Lisa P.Vetter, Ph.D., Paul Wright, Ph.D., and Mary DiLucia, Ph.D., will begin teaching this semester. Each Ennis Fellow will teach three sections of the Core Humanities Seminar, an interdisciplinary course that is required for all new students.

"I love the idea of the kind of teaching that happens in the Core...it's really attractive and really interesting to me. This kind of teaching - small classes, working with first year students, all these kinds of things are going to be fun." said Ennis Fellow Paul Townend.

The Ennis fellows are an integral part of the Core Humanities program. "They are in some ways the heart and soul of the program," said Thomas Smith, acting director of the program. "When we were interviewing this year we had hundreds of really top notch applications and so we were fortunate enough to be able to not just pick the best but the best from a variety of disciplines." The Ennis Fellows are indeed from diverse backgrounds but all have research agendas that fall within the parameters of core humanities. "They bring a lot of different methodological approaches to the program which is really important because it's an inter-disciplinary program," Smith added.

Paul Townend earned his doctorate in British/Irish history at the University of Chicago. His research interests include modern Irish social history, specifically the history of alcoholism in Irish society. His book, Dry Ireland: Father Matthew, Temperance and Irish Identity is soon to be published.

Mary Agnes Edsall earned her doctorate from Columbia University in English. She is especially interested in the religious literature of the middle ages.

Louis Hamilton is a native Philadelphian and a Villanova alumnus (Honors/history '91). He will received doctorate in medieval history this September from Fordham University.

Lisa P. Vetter also earned her doctorate from Fordham University. Her degree is in political philosophy. She currently is revising her dissertation, "A Critique of Scientific Politics in Plato's Statesman," for publication.

Paul Wright taught at Osaka University in Japan prior to earning his doctorate from Princeton. His dissertation and research center around Machiavelli and Machiavellianism.
Mary DiLucia completed her doctorate in the Department of Comparative Literature at Harvard University. She has done research in Rome and southern Italy and is currently working on her thesis titled "The Sabine Version."

Smith describes the six new Ennis Fellows as "Very talented, very diverse, committed, obviously enthusiastic about the program and also very enthusiastic about Villanova. They seem really excited about teaching our students and being in this particular place."