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Biographies
Edward Tilson
Rector and President
Professor Tilson is a an internationally known academic whose work on Renaissance thought and literature is at the forefront of contemporary critical re-evaluations of humanism and (post)modernity.
As the first Rector of the HDD Project, Professor Tilson has set the following priorities:
♦ to continue working with the Ontario government to complete the processes leading to the granting of consent to establish and operate an independent university college offering the Project’s proposed degree programs;
♦ to ensure that exceptional program standards build credentials of the highest value to students and employers alike;
♦ to ensure that the Project’s purely digital delivery format and radically innovative tuition and business model will significantly increase the accessibility of a humanities degree to students in Ontario and across the digital domain.
A Montaigne specialist, Professor Tilson has written numerous articles and book chapters on the Essais, as well as on Ronsard’s Amours and on Rabelais’ Chronicques, most recently, “Cynic Charity and Christian Satire: Blending Genres and Programming Readings in the ‘Author’s Prologue’ to Rabelais’s Tiers Livre” (Yale French Studies, no. 134, January 2019, pp. 33-50) and “La raison et les affects dans La Theologie naturelle de Raymond Sebon, traduicte nouvellement en français par messire Michel, Seigneur de Montaigne” (Montaigne Studies, vol. XXX, no. 1-2, March 2018, pp.165-178). Broadly, his work focuses on how understandings of modernity shape and are shaped by readings — or mis-readings — of canonical Renaissance texts. His interest in how Renaissance writers forge new conceptions of reality by recombining forms and ideas inherited from diverse classical schools of thought led to his direction of the volume, Les Interférences des écoles de pensée antiques dans la littérature de la Renaissance, for Garnier’s “Perspectives humanistes” series (Paris, 2013).
As a teacher, Professor Tilson has developed dozens of undergraduate and graduate courses and led efforts to revitalize humanities programs and reinforce academic standards. His interest in digital didactics began during his training as a teaching assistant at the universities of Geneva and Yale, and he continued to experiment with the adaptation and integration of new technologies to improve the design and teaching of humanities courses at the universities of Ottawa, Missouri and Trent.
In parallel with his own teaching, Professor Tilson returned to school in 2015 to experience digital learning in Ontario’s public system from the student’s perspective and to update his administrative software skills by completing an online diploma (O.C.D.) in business entrepreneurship at Durham College.
A graduate of the universities of Toronto (B.A., Trinity College), Carleton (B.A. Hon., M.A.), and Yale (M.A., M. Phil., Ph. D.), Professor Tilson has over three decades of experience as a humanities teacher and administrator. Having joined the HDDP as one of its founding directors in 2014, he oversaw the development of the Project’s academic programs as well as its academic and financial plans, and exterior relations. Professor Tilson was elected Rector and President of the Humanities Digital Degrees Project on June 11th, 2018.
Vinciane Boudonnet
Provost and Vice-President, Academic
Professor Boudonnet’s critical work focuses on 20th-century French and English literary traditions, and on the play of influences between them. A Salinger specialist, she also publishes on the writings of the Beat Generation, especially on the influence of Proust and Genet on “Beat” novels (“Échos de la Recherche chez les Beats : Proust sur la route”; “De Proust à Burroughs : transformations de la Recherche chez les Beats”).
As a teacher at the universities of Missouri, Laurentian and Trent, Professor Boudonnet developed a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses, and worked closely with senior university administrators to develop new humanities minor and major concentrations. She has been a leading proponent of the use of digital technology to reform the teaching of fundamental language skills and to build better bridges between the mastery of grammar and rhetoric, and the study of the humanities.
Professor Boudonnet studied at the University of Toulouse II (DEUG, Licence ès L, Licence FLE, Maîtrise, DEA, Doctorat) and the University of California, Berkeley, and has taught for 15 years at universities in the United States and Canada. A director of the Project since 2014, she has been responsible for the development of its common-core propaedeutic programs and for its digital communications. Professor Boudonnet was elected Provost and Vice-President, Academic of the Humanities Digital Degrees Project on June 11th, 2018.
Kenneth Field
Vice-President, Administrative and Chief Librarian
One of Canada’s foremost authorities on digital library services, Kenneth Field is also a seasoned university administrator. As a librarian, Mr. Field headed Access Services at Trent University’s Peterborough campus before going on to head the library at Trent’s new campus in Durham, where he oversaw the creation of a new and largely digital library from the ground up, exercising responsibility for financial planning and accountability, human resources, and the development of collections, policies, service delivery, and information literacy tools. In connection with his expertise in digital library services, Mr. Field has become a nationally recognised authority on issues of copyright in academia.
As an administrator, Mr. Field first served as Principal of Lady Eaton College, a residential college at Trent University’s Peterborough campus, where he exercised administrative and academic oversight of the college’s operations, as well as responsibility for all aspects of student well-being. He then served as Acting Principal of Trent University in Oshawa, with responsibility for all areas of administration at the new campus, including the development and implementation of the satellite campus’ strategic, financial and academic plans.
Mr. Field took his bachelor’s degree in music at the University of Dalhousie before completing his Master’s of Library and Information Sciences at the University of British Columbia. He also holds a Graduate Professional Certificate in Library Sector Leadership from the University of Victoria. As a founding director, he has overseen planning for sourcing and supplying course texts and supplementary materials, and has developed the Project’s Library Services Plan. Mr. Field was elected Vice-President, Administrative and appointed Chief Librarian of the Humanities Digital Degrees Project on June 11th, 2018.