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Steve J. Stern

Steve J. Stern is the Alberto Flores Galindo and Hilldale Professor of History, and Vice Provost for Faculty and Staff, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

In his vice provost role, he works closely with Provost Paul M. DeLuca, Jr., to address a range of faculty and staff concerns including recruitment-retention issues, pay-reward structure, named professorships, interdisciplinary theme hiring and development (known on campus as the “cluster” program), dual career placement, faculty diversity, tenure best-practices, leadership development, and problem solving assistance for deans, chairs, faculty, and staff.   During his term as vice provost, he has won a Faculty-Staff Ally of the Year Award for LGBTQ People, and a Friend of Academic Staff Award.

In his professor role, Stern researches and teaches Latin American history.  He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2012.  His research spans five centuries and many countries, and demonstrates the inventiveness of Latin American responses to unequal structures of power, with sometimes surprising impact on world history.  His recent research focuses on human rights and social memory of  “dirty war” eras of the 20th century, notably Chile after the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, and Peru after the Shining Path war.  Major awards include the Bolton-Johnson Prize for best book in Latin American history, and research fellowships from American Council of Learned Societies, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, Fulbright-Hays Faculty Research Program, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Social Science Research Council.

Stern enjoys and interprets the relationship between teaching and scholarship synergistically.  During his career at UW-Madison, he has taught the full range of courses including undergraduate surveys, upper-level and seminar courses, and graduate courses including inter-disciplinary undergraduate and graduate courses.  His graduate program takes pride in a collaborative teaching ethos in which all core faculty are co-advisors.  He has served on 77 Ph.D defense committees, 39 as co-advisor.  At UW-Madison, he has also taught over 4,000 undergraduates, has led special Honors discussion groups in large survey courses, and has incorporated a lot of experimentalism into his teaching techniques.  He has also served as a teacher and mentor of Latin American students abroad.  In 1983, the UW-Madison honored his passion for teaching with a William Kiekhofer Distinguished Teaching Award.

Read Stern's essay "The Irony of Memory Politics in Post-Heroic Times: Chile and World Culture," Foreword to The Politics of Memory in Chile: From Pinochet to Bachelet, edited by Cath Collins, Katherine Hite, and Alfredo Joignant, editors. Copyright 2013 by Lynna Rienner Publishers, Inc.

Professor Stern's web page at the University of Wisconsin-Madison