Dr. Alexandra Socarides began serving as the provost and vice president for academic affairs on July 1, 2024. As Emerson’s provost, she provides strategic vision, leadership, and support for all aspects of the academic enterprise: academic planning, program development at the undergraduate and graduate levels, assessment, hiring of faculty, advancement of faculty research and creative work, excellence in teaching, and global engagement initiatives.
Socarides previously served in a variety of administrative roles at the University of Missouri, including associate provost, chair of the English department, faculty advisor to the chancellor, and director of undergraduate studies in English. As associate provost from 2020 to 2024, she built a suite of faculty success programs, including a faculty leadership development program, a mid-career faculty development program, and a program for junior BIPOC faculty; oversaw MU’s 300+ degree programs; and oversaw faculty affairs, including hiring, accreditation, and promotion and tenure.
A scholar and teacher of nineteenth-century American poetry, Socarides is the author of two books from Oxford University Press: Dickinson Unbound: Paper, Process, Poetics (2012) and In Plain Sight: American Women’s Poetry and the Problem with Literary History (2020). She is also the co-editor of A History of Nineteenth-Century American Women’s Poetry (Cambridge University Press, 2016) and Collected Writings of Charles Brockden Brown, Volume 7: Poetry (Bucknell University Press, 2020). She is the recipient of several research fellowships, including ones from the Huntington Library and the American Antiquarian Society.
She holds a PhD and an MA in English from Rutgers University, an MFA in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College, and a BA in English from Bates College.
About
- Department Academic Affairs