Barbara Shailor, deputy provost for the arts, Yale University, records

The Office of the Provost was created by vote of the Yale Corporation in 1919. The establishment of the office was part of a general University reorganization plan that was submitted to the Corporation by the Committee on Educational Policy. By the term of Provost Edgar S. Furniss (1937-1958), the office had evolved to essentially its present-day function. The provost is the chief academic officer of the University, responsible for administering all of the internal operations of the University concerned with education and research.

Barbara A. Shailor was appointed deputy provost for the arts in July 2003. As such, she is involved in shaping and implementing the academic, administrative, strategic planning, and budgetary policies of the Schools of Art, Architecture, Drama, Music, and Divinity; the Institute of Sacred Music; the Classics, Music and Religious Studies departments; the Yale University Art Gallery, the Yale Center for British Art, the Paul Mellon Center in London, the Digital Media Center for the Arts; and the University Library system.

Ms. Shailor came to Yale in 2001 as the director of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Prior to that, she served as dean of Douglass College, professor of classics at Rutgers University, and a faculty member and administrator at Bucknell University. Her field of specialization is Latin paleography and codicology, encompassing the study of Visigothic manuscripts copied and illuminated in northern Spain in the 10th and 11th centuries.

Ms. Shailor has published extensively, including five books and a series of articles on medieval and renaissance manuscripts. She has been awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the American Philosophical Society. She is currently serving as treasurer of the Medieval Academy of America and as a trustee of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, as well as on the boards of the Public Leadership Education Network in Washington D.C. and the Center for Parliamentary History at Yale. Dr. Shailor was elected to membership in the Comité international de paléographie latine in Paris and the Grolier Club of New York City in 2000.

Barbara Shailor received an undergraduate degree magna cum laude from Wilson College and a Ph.D. in Classical Philology from the University of Cincinnati.