Dean, Dr. Melissa Gregory
Melissa Valiska Gregory, Ph.D., is the dean of the College of Arts and Letters (CAL) and a professor of English. Gregory came to UToledo in 2002 as a faculty member in the English department specializing in nineteenth-century British literature. She was UToledo’s first Presidential Fellow, and in that inaugural role she led the project of creating the University’s current provost-level tenure and promotion guidelines. Gregory joined the College of Arts and Letters dean’s office in 2018 as an associate dean and served as the interim dean for the college 2022-2024 until selected in March 2024 as dean after a national search. In her capacity as senior associate dean, highlights of Gregory’s leadership include several new retention initiatives and a significant increase in the college’s engagement with various forms of undergraduate research, supported by Gregory’s dual role as director of honors for the college.
Gregory also led several important curricular initiatives in the CAL dean’s office and served as the primary investigator on a $133,859 “Humanities Initiatives at Colleges and Universities” grant, awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities to support the creation of a health humanities minor at UToledo.
Gregory was accepted to the nationally competitive ACE Fellowship program for future leaders of higher education as a member of the 2022-2023 cohort, but she deferred the opportunity to serve as interim dean of CAL. An award-winning literary scholar and educator, Gregory has a B.A. in English and Studio Art from The College of Wooster and an M.A. and Ph.D. in English literature from Indiana University.