Verity Platt appointed director of Humanities Scholars Program

The Humanities Scholars Program welcomes Verity Platt, professor of classics and history of art in the College of Arts & Sciences, as the program’s incoming director. Platt was instrumental in the creation of the Humanities Scholars Program, a joint undertaking with Paul Fleming, L. Sanford and Jo Mills Reis Professor of Humanities (A&S), and Durba Ghosh, professor of history (A&S) and inaugural director of the program. Subsequently, Platt served on the program’s faculty advisory board from 2020-2023. 

In a statement, the Humanities Scholars Program expressed gratitude to Ghosh for her exceptional leadership since the program’s inception in 2019 to the spring of 2023, and to Lawrence B. Glickman, Stephen and Evalyn Milman Professor in American Studies (A&S) for serving as interim director from 2023-2024. The program thrived under Ghosh’s and Glickman’s leadership, and now comprises 59 juniors and seniors with wide-ranging interests in the humanities.

A prominent scholar in Greek and Roman art history and co-curator of Cornell’s collection of plaster casts, Platt is also dedicated to helping undergraduates succeed. She is a recipient of the Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow Award, presented to faculty members in recognition of their commitment to the teaching and mentoring of undergraduate students and to undergraduate education. As director of the Humanities Scholars Program, Platt says she hopes to give students who are interested in the humanities a sense of community at Cornell, in addition to helping them develop strong research and presentation skills that will be indispensable well after they graduate. She says that she “looks forward to working with the remarkable students in the Humanities Scholars Program.”