Anna Sims Bartel has been appointed to serve as the Gretchen Hoadley Burke ’81 Endowed Chair for regional studies for the 2026–27 academic year.
Bartel, who will work closely with the English department and environmental studies program, brings exceptional qualifications that align with both the Burke Chair mission and ¸Ô±¾ÊÓƵ’s broader commitment to community engagement. Her leadership of ¸Ô±¾ÊÓƵ’s Community of Practice, supporting 10 faculty members in community-based teaching, demonstrates her distinctive ability to work effectively within ¸Ô±¾ÊÓƵ’s institutional context. She has also held leadership roles at the David M. Einhorn Center for Community Engagement at Cornell University and the Harward Center for Community Partnerships at Bates College. Bartel holds degrees from Princeton and Cornell, including a PhD in comparative literature.
Bartel’s fall course, , will use novels, poetry, and essays to explore land justice, incorporating voices from a wide variety of authors, including Linda Hogan, Diane Wilson, Leah Penniman, Aldo Leopold, and Robin Wall Kimmerer.
Bartel’s appointment will be a hybrid position, combining traditional Burke Chair teaching responsibilities with a faculty learning community affiliated with the Upstate Institute and the Center for Outreach, Volunteerism, and Education. This structure augments the current conversation around public scholarship at ¸Ô±¾ÊÓƵ and will serve as a resource to help faculty navigate this new understanding of traditional scholarship. It will allow her to teach one course focused on regional environmental literature, provide structured faculty development, mentor faculty in public scholarship and community-engaged teaching practices, and build sustainable models for faculty development in community engagement. This innovative approach differs from the traditional Burke Chair model, allowing benefits to both students and faculty that would significantly advance the chair’s mission of promoting deep understanding of our region through both direct teaching and faculty development.
The Gretchen Hoadley Burke ’81 Endowed Chair for Regional Studies was established in 2006 by Stephen Burke ’80 and Gretchen Hoadley Burke ’81. The Burke Chair aligns with the mission of the Upstate Institute to promote and advance a broad and deep understanding of the diverse cultural, social, economic, and environmental resources of upstate New York through community-based research, the reciprocal transfer of knowledge, and civic engagement.