06/26/2014 12:57 PM
By Ernie Ballard
The LSU Board of Supervisors on Friday, May 9, unanimously voted to award a Boyd Professorship
to LSU History Professor Suzanne Marchand, an internationally known and respected
researcher in the field of German history.
“Suzanne Marchand’s excellence as a scholar and an educator are well known both on
campus and around the world. Faculty like her are a major part of what makes LSU so
exceptional,” said LSU President & Chancellor F. King Alexander. “It is an honor to
count Dr. Marchand as one of our faculty, and now as one of our elite Boyd Professors.”
A designation as Boyd Professor is the LSU System’s highest and most prestigious academic
rank, and is only awarded to faculty who have achieved national and international
recognition for outstanding research, teaching or other creative achievements.
“We send our deepest congratulations to Suzanne Marchand on this well-deserved distinction,”
said LSU Executive Vice Chancellor & Provost Stuart Bell. “Dr. Marchand is an internationally
known and respected historian, but just as important, she is an appreciated teacher
and mentor to our undergraduate and graduate students. Her career certainly warrants
the honor of being an LSU Boyd Professor.”
Gaines Foster, dean of the LSU College of Humanities & Social Sciences, in nominating
Marchand noted that she is “recognized and respected for her intellectual achievements”
in both the United States and Europe.
“Suzanne Marchand is an extraordinary person, teacher and scholar,” Foster wrote in
his nomination letter. “She has established herself as one of the premier German and
European intellectual historians of her generation. That reputation will only grow
with time.”
Nominations for the Boyd Professorship from a campus are evaluated by the LSU System
Boyd Professor Review Committee, which seeks confidential evaluations from distinguished
scholars in the candidate’s field of expertise. Once endorsed by the review committee,
the nomination is forward to the LSU system president and Board of Supervisors for
approval. Faculty are not informed of their nomination until the Board votes to award
the Boyd Professorship.
Marchand received her bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkley
in 1984, and a master’s degree in 1985 and a Ph.D. in 1992, both from the University
of Chicago. She began her teaching career in 1991 as an instructor at the University
of Chicago. She worked as an assistant professor and then associate professor at Princeton
University, before coming to LSU in 1999.
Among Marchand’s numerous awards and honors are being elected president of the German
Studies Association; a summer fellowship at Max Planck Institut für Wissenschaftgechichte
in Berlin, the only American historian of her generation chosen to hold that honor
at the time; the Tiger Athletic Foundation Teaching Prize and an LSU Distinguished
Research Master.
Marchand is the 72nd Boyd Professor named in the LSU System, and the 47th from LSU
A&M, to be awarded the coveted title since it was established in 1953 to honor brothers
David and Thomas Boyd, early faculty members and presidents of LSU. She is the fourth
woman to receive the honor, and the first female since 1997 named a Boyd Professor.
With this appointment, there are now 20 active Boyd Professors across multiple campuses
of the LSU System.
Posted on Thursday, June 26, 2014