Founding dean of Fritz Honors College brings inclusive vision

Lenoir-Rhyne University has named Jeff Vahlbusch, Ph.D., as the inaugural dean of the Fritz Honors College. Starting this new role in early October 2023, Vahlbusch will take charge of the planning and implementation of the new honors college that will unite the university’s interdisciplinary honors programs under a single entity. 

“At such a crucial time in the foundation of the Fritz Honors College, I am excited that a thorough national search has resulted in Dr. Vahlbusch joining Lenoir-Rhyne,” shared university provost and vice-president for academic affairs, Jennifer Burris, Ph.D. “A hallmark of Vahlbusch’s honors leadership is his award-winning collaborative work at local, state, and national levels to promote and practice inclusive honors education that is accessible to all who want to make the most of their potential."  

Vahlbusch began his life in honors education as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, earning the highest honors in German with a senior honors thesis on Friedrich Nietzsche and Franz Kafka. While completing his master’s and doctoral studies at Michigan, he worked for many years as a teaching assistant with the honors program in Michigan’s College of Literature, Science and the Arts.

As a teacher and scholar of German literature, history, and philosophy, Vahlbusch conducted research and taught at four different universities in Germany — including 14 months of dissertation research in Berlin supported by a Fulbright grant and stipends from Berlin’s Luftbrückendank Foundation. Vahlbusch became a professor of German at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire (UWEC), earning tenure and promotion in 2005. He then directed the University Honors Program at UWEC from 2009 through 2017. From 2017 until July 2023, Vahlbusch led Appalachian State University’s Honors College as its inaugural dean.

“For many years, honors programs and colleges nationwide have been essentially ‘gated communities,’ including some but excluding many other motivated, talented, passionate, creative students,” Vahlbusch said. “Today, the best honors colleges and programs in the nation and the world are working hard to be radically inclusive and welcoming, striving to identify, recruit, and serve all students who are — or who in the course of their studies become — high-achieving, high-potential, or highly motivated, and helping them learn to lead.”

This open and inclusive vision of honors education will guide Vahlbusch as he builds the new program at Lenoir-Rhyne, integrating elements of existing honors programming and developing new avenues to help students pursue their passions and excel in those pursuits.

The Fritz Honors College – made possible by a $1 million gift from Rob Fritz ’76 and his wife Kathy – will offer an honors academic curriculum, research opportunities, internships, study abroad and more. The Engaged Scholars program, Honors Academy and Lineberger Fellows will unite into a single organization to make more efficient use of resources and continue a long tradition of student enrichment.

“I am thrilled to join Lenoir-Rhyne as founding dean of the new Fritz Honors College. I join our entire university community in thanking Rob and Kathy Fritz for their devotion to Lenoir-Rhyne, for their wonderfully generous founding gift, and for their ongoing friendship, counsel, and support for LR,” said Vahlbusch. “I look forward to working with students and colleagues across the university to build a distinctive, world-class Honors College where students and faculty meet to collaborate, innovate, grow, lead, and serve, on our campus and in the world.”