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An opinion piece titled “Concerning Value: A Small College Liberal Arts Education,” written by Dean of Faculty Joe Urgo, appears in the March issue of University Business magazine. “Because a liberal arts education cannot be monetized and exchanged, the question of its dollar value is the wrong question to ask,” wrote Urgo. “The appropriate question is: what is the value of the setting in which the liberal arts education is pursued, and are there students and families who find that setting worth the monetary sacrifice? How much training, support, social opportunity, and community experience do we think it appropriate to provide those who will be leading our society in the future?”

The following announcement was sent to the campus community by President Joan Stewart on Monday, Feb. 22, at 12:15 p.m. It is with very mixed feelings that I write to say that Vice President and Dean of Faculty Joe Urgo has been named president of St. Mary’s College of Maryland, effective July 1.

Dean of Faculty Joseph R. Urgo has co-authored a new book, Reading Faulkner: Absalom, Absalom! (University Press of Mississippi, March, 2010), with Noel Polk, professor emeritus of English at Mississippi State University.

Dean of Faculty Joseph Urgo presented a paper titled “Faulkner’s Pedagogy” at the 125th Modern Language Association annual conference in Philadelphia. The panel was sponsored by the William Faulkner Society and chaired by Hamilton Professor of English Catherine Gunther Kodat.

Dean of Faculty Joseph Urgo's essay, "Gorham Munson Falls Out with Cather: A Letter" was published in Willa Cather: New Facts, New Glimpses, Revisions, eds. John J. Murphy and Merrill Maguire Skaggs (Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson Press). The essay is based on a letter discovered by Urgo in a Drew University archive. Through a close reading of the 1934 letter from Cather to critic Gorham Munson, probably never mailed, Urgo reconstructs a previously undocumented aspect of Cather's relationship with her contemporaries.