Associate Dean of Academic Affairs

The Associate Dean serves as a member of the college’s First Year Team, works with faculty and administrators to advance assessment and advising, facilitates ongoing faculty development, and contributes to curriculum development noting national and local trends in student learning. Dr. McKay is also responsible for the recruitment of courses for The First Year Seminar Program.

Dr. McKay received her B.A. in Art from Colby College and her M.A. and Ph.D. in the History of Art from the University of Virginia. Her research interests include the intersection of theology and art in the early Christian and Byzantine periods. She has also begun a new project on the reception and understanding of Byzantine art in nineteenth-century Europe, with an essay that will be published in the journal Studies in Medievalism, on which she collaborated with undergraduate students. Dr. McKay is also the Director of the Honors Program and Associate Professor of Art History in the Department of Art and Art History.

Personal Statement: Working with the faculty to improve their lives as teachers, advisors, and scholars is the highlight of my role as Associate Dean. Interacting with students in the First Year Program is also rewarding in its own right. In short, all the work I do – whether in the classroom or not – I view as a form of teaching, which is, fundamentally, what I have always wanted to do.