To think about repair means to consider not just present conditions, but past circumstances of things and systems that we recognize as broken, or perhaps as having never functioned at all. Repair also encompasses future aspirations—the prospect of remediation, refurbishing, restoration. Devices and objects, of course, are often in need of repair, as are bodies, psyches, systems, environments, institutions, ideologies, cultures, histories… the list goes on.
The Humanities Research Center invites you to join our series of conversations around the theme of repair. The goal is to build multi-layered conversations about how various scholars and practitioners in the humanities and the arts mobilize the idea of repair, both through its embracing and contesting.
We will activate the theme of repair along two axes: (1) by organizing a two-year-long program featuring dialogic panels, workshops, and public lectures; and (2) by sponsoring or co-sponsoring interdisciplinary events and other collaborative programming.
Upcoming Events
Spring 2025
HRC Repair Conversation: Higher Ed under Repair—Fissures and Futures
with
- Holden Thorp, Editor-in-Chief, Science Journals; Former Chancellor, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC)
- Patricia Okker, Higher Education Consultant; Former President, the New College of Florida
- Ruth Simmons, President's Distinguished Fellow, Rice University; Former President, Brown University, Smith College, and Prairie View A&M University; National Humanities Medal Recipient
Date: Wednesday, March 26, 2025
Time: 4 PM
Location: TBA
Registration: https://events.rice.edu/event/hrc-higher-ed-under-repair
Reception to follow
About Patricia Okker:
American literature professor. Marathon runner. University president. Powerlifter and weightlifter. Dean. Patricia Okker has worn many hats through her life and career and witnessed the changing and challenging landscape of higher education.
Born and raised in New Jersey, Okker is a first-generation college graduate who went to college expecting to be a science major. But she discovered her true passion for American literature and has since devoted much of her career to the humanities and its critical role in developing leaders.
She rose through the ranks at the University of Missouri to become dean of MU’s College of Arts and Science, where she led efforts that improved student retention rates, increased the college’s diversity of faculty and leadership, implemented a college-wide initiative around career education, and successfully completed the college’s largest fundraising
campaign.
In 2021, she became the first woman president of New College of Florida, boosting enrollment and endowments while building stronger community and industry partnerships. She was fired in a hostile political takeover of the school in early
2023, prompting community outrage and Okker’s alignment with groups like PEN America to protect open expression and academic freedom.
Okker holds a bachelor of arts from Allegheny College and master of arts from the University of Georgia. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She recently was honored with the Modern Language Association’s Francis Andrew March Award for her contribution to the profession.
About Holden Thorp:
Holden Thorp became Editor-in-Chief of the Science family of journals on 28 October 2019. He came to Science from Washington University, where he was provost from 2013 to 2019 and professor from 2013 to 2023. He is currently a professor at George Washington University and on leave to serve as the Editor-in-Chief at Science.
Thorp joined Washington University after spending three decades at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), where he served as the 10th chancellor from 2008 through 2013.
Thorp earned a bachelor of science degree from UNC, a doctorate in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology, and completed postdoctoral work at Yale University. He holds honorary degrees from Hofstra University and North Carolina Wesleyan College and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Inventors, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Thorp cofounded Viamet Pharmaceuticals, which developed VIVJOA (oteseconazole), now approved by the FDA and marketed by Mycovia Pharmaceuticals. Thorp is a venture partner at Hatteras Venture Partners, a consultant to Ancora and Urban Impact Advisors, and is on the board of directors of PBS, the College Advising Corps, and Saint Louis University. He serves on the scientific advisory boards of the Yale School of Medicine and the Underwriters’ Laboratories Research Institutes. In 2023, STAT named Thorp to its STATUS list of top leaders in the life sciences.
Thorp is the coauthor, with Buck Goldstein, of two books on higher education: Engines of Innovation: The Entrepreneurial University in the Twenty-First Century and Our Higher Calling: Rebuilding the Partnership Between America and its Colleges and Universities, both from UNC Press.
About Ruth Simmons:
Regarded by peers as among the most respected university president of this generation, Ruth J. Simmons has spent 50 years in higher education and served as president of Brown University, Smith College and Prairie View A&M University, an Historically Black College and University (HBCU). She currently serves as a President’s Distinguished Fellow at Rice University and Adviser to the President of Harvard on its HBCU initiative.
A French professor before entering university administration, Simmons held an appointment as a Professor of Africana Studies at Brown. After completing her Ph.D. in romance languages and literatures at Harvard, she served in various faculty and administrative roles at the University of Southern California, Princeton University, and Spelman College before becoming president of Smith College, the largest women’s college in the United States. At Smith, she launched a number of important academic initiatives, including an engineering program, the first at an American women’s college.
Simmons is the recipient of many honors, including a Fulbright Fellowship to France, the 2001 President’s Award from the United Negro College Fund, the 2002 Fulbright Lifetime Achievement Medal, the 2004 Eleanor Roosevelt Val-Kill Medal, the Foreign Policy Association Medal, the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, and the Centennial Medal from Harvard University.
Simmons is a member of the National Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the Council on Foreign Relations, as well as a number of non-profit boards. Awarded numerous honorary degrees, she received the Brown Faculty’s highest honor: the Susan Colver Rosenberger Medal in 2011. In 2012, she was named a ‘chevalier’ of the French Legion of Honour. In 2024, Simmons was awarded a National Humanities Medal.
Header Image: Darning Sampler, Dutch, 1797. Used to demonstrate and practice mending skills, darning samplers display a wide array of weaves, patterns, and colors.