As dean of Dedman College and vice provost of Southern Methodist University, Jasper Neel has been a powerful force on campus for almost a decade.
Recently, Neel announced he will be taking a year-long sabbatical after his current contract ends next August but will return to join SMU’s Department of English as one of the college’s 275 full-time faculty members.
“I’m not resigning,” Neel said. “A job like this is for a set term, and I’m simply not seeking a third term…I think a decade is long enough.”
According to Neel, it is not unusual for him to work 75-80 hours a week during the school year, and taking a year off means more time for things he has missed because of his duties as dean.
“Just by not having this job, I can eat breakfast, lunch and dinner with my family,” Neel said. He will also be able to spend time with his daughter, who goes to a public high school in Plano.
The Neels moved to Dallas from Nashville, Tenn., where Neel served as the chair of the English department at Vanderbilt University. Though his term as chair was almost up, he had planned on remaining at Vanderbilt for at least 15 more years.
“I thought I had my life all set,” he said. However, Neel felt like moving was the right thing to do, and in June 1997 he stepped into his position at SMU.
According to Neel, now is the perfect time for him to make the career move from dean and vice-provost to professor.
“I believe we need someone else,” Neel said. “The centennial is coming up. I don’t think it would be a good idea for us to be right in the middle of the centennial campaign [and change deans].” Neel has expressed hope that his successor will remain in the position just as long as he has.
Neel definitely does not see his return to teaching as a step down. “It was an accident that I became a department chair. The reason I went to school and got my Ph.D. was so that I could teach,” he said. “I’m running a business with 600 employees. I went to graduate school because I like teaching Shakespeare and I like teaching the connection between literature and religion.”
While he describes his invitation to become dean and vice-provost at SMU as “the greatest professional honor of my life,” Neel said he is excited about the chance to return to the classroom.
While he does currently teach one class, Neel will take on a full course load of four classes per semester when he returns in the fall of 2007. He plans on using some his sabbatical leave to bring his lesson plans up-to-date.
Neel said he needs to bring his lessons “up to 21st century standards, so that the work in the class is the best I can do.” Neel also plans to continue work on a book he started writing several years ago.
Neel is an award-winning author of books on the art of writing, including “Aristotle’s Voice: Rhetoric, Theory, and Writing in America” and “Plato, Derrida, and Writing.”
His books have earned the 1995 W. Ross Winterowd Prize from the Association of Teachers of Advanced Composition and the 1989 Mina P. Shaughnessy Prize from the Modern Language Association. His newest book is “Rhetorical Choice Theory, or What I Can Do to Socrates.”
“The book will be about Isocrates,” Neel said. “I regard Isocrates as the founder of modern philosophical thought. But I couldn’t figure out quite how to make [that argument].” Neel plans on researching and continuing his writing during his sabbatical leave.
Currently, Neel is working on creating an English Ph.D. program here at SMU. The program goes up for approval this Friday. If the measure is approved, Neel looks forward to spending his last few years at SMU developing and strengthening the new program.
Neel has admirers among the student body and among his peers in SMU’s administration. “Dean Neel has provided distinctive leadership to Dedman College,” said Dr. Robert Blocker, SMU’s new provost, in a press release issued on Aug. 29. “[Leadership] that sought to elevate the academic excellence of the college, that kept students at the center of the enterprise and that extended the influence of Dedman College far beyond campus.”
“We look forward to his continuing leadership during the 2005-2006 school year,” said University President R. Gerald Turner in the same press release.
