University of Portland’s College of Arts and Sciences is pleased to announce the appointment of Elise Moentmann as associate dean for students, effective July 1, 2013. Dr. Moentmann is associate professor of History and has been teaching at UP since August 1998. She has served as Chair of the Department of History since Fall 2009 and teaches courses covering Europe broadly from 1600 as well as more focused studies of modern France, East Asia, especially Japan, and global urban history.
Moentmann holds the Bachelor of Architecture and Master of Arts (History) degrees from Louisiana Tech University. She received her Ph.D. in Modern European History from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 1998. Her research and scholarship examine the relationship between national identity and cultural production (especially cinema and theater) in interwar Alsace and Moselle.
Moentmann has served as director of the Summer Salzburg Session, Chair of the Committee on Committees, member of the Academic Senate and the Senate Executive Committee, member of the CAS Curriculum Committee, and Faculty Advisor to the Phi Alpha Theta National Honors Society in History since 2000. She brings academic excellence, creative leadership, and a strong commitment to formation of the whole person, as exemplified by the Holy Cross mission to educate head, heart, and hands. Moentmann will succeed Dr. James Stemler, interim associate dean for students, who returned to his former position from retirement for Academic Year 2012-13.