Margaret Meserve named vice president and associate provost for academic space and support

Margaret Meserve, the Glynn Family Collegiate Professor of History and co-director of the Glynn Family Honors Program at the University of Notre Dame, has been appointed vice president and associate provost for academic space and support, effective July 1.

In this role, Meserve will work with the University Architect’s office to help manage major new projects for academic units, including new buildings, renovations and moves. In addition, she will manage plans for backfill, swing space and efficient use of existing space on campus and set priorities for the upgrade and repair process.

Meserve will also develop a long-term strategic plan for existing and projected academic space and help to determine standards for utilization of academic space in consultation with Vice President and Associate Provost for Academic Strategy David Go.

“Space is a crucial resource for everyone at Notre Dame, and learning how to do more with the space we have is central to our aspirations in teaching, learning and research,” said John T. McGreevy, the Charles and Jill Fischer Provost. “Margaret is already a trusted partner of the Facilities Design and Operations team and she has helped us tremendously over the past few months as we consider our academic space needs and how to responsibly steward our resources. I look forward to working with her in this expanded role.”

Meserve previously served as associate dean for the humanities and faculty affairs and director of space planning in the College of Arts and Letters, where she provided strategic leadership for 24 renovation projects for humanities departments and programs in Decio and O’Shaughnessy Halls. In January, she was named senior director of academic space for the Provost’s Office.

In her new expanded role, she will split her time equally between the Provost’s Office and her scholarly work, which includes teaching, research and leadership of the Glynn Family Honors Program.

Meserve studies the Italian Renaissance and the histories of printing and book production, history writing, humanist culture and the papacy in the 15th and 16th centuries. Her most recent book, Papal Bull: Print, Politics, and Propaganda in Renaissance Rome, won the American Catholic Historical Association’s Helen & Howard Marraro Prize for the most distinguished work in Italian history published in 2021.

Meserve received her bachelor’s degree in classics from Harvard and her master’s and doctorate in Renaissance history from the University of London. She taught at Princeton for two years before coming to Notre Dame in 2003. She has won fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Council of Learned Societies and she is a fellow of the American Academy in Rome.

She is currently working on a translation of the Commentaries of Pope Pius II, a Renaissance pope known for his urban planning projects and the only pope ever to compose an autobiography while in office.

“I’m thrilled to take on this important role working with partners across campus to make the best use of our academic buildings,” Meserve said. “Notre Dame enjoys an extraordinary architectural heritage and I hope our spaces can promote excellent teaching and research and a stronger sense of academic community among faculty, students and staff.”