Poet-academic Airea 'Dee' Matthews named provost of Bryn Mawr College

Bryn Mawr College has announced the hiring of Black Catholic poet and academic Airea “Dee” Matthews as its new provost, initially tasked with helping the institution implement recently completed strategic planning.

The 140-year old women’s college, one of the “Seven Sisters,” announced the news on Dec. 4, with school president Dr. Wendy Cadge praising the 53-year-old Matthews as a “true strategic leader.”

“Dee's genuine dedication to Bryn Mawr, along with her notable professional accomplishments, strategic leadership, and collaborative spirit, make her an exceptional choice to lead the next chapter of our academic endeavors,” Cadge said in a statement.

“I have been impressed by her relational empathy, capacity for big ideas, and many qualities that make her a true strategic leader.”

Currently the co-chair of Bryn Mawr’s creative writing department, Matthews will enter the provost role with more than a dozen years of experience in academia as well as a decade in the corporate sector, where she began her career. She is succeeding past provost Dr. Timothy Harte and interim provost Dr. David Karen.

Matthews earned her bachelor’s in economics from the University of Pennsylvania and two graduate degrees from the University of Michigan. After studying for a Master of Public Administration in Social Policy, she broke into the poetry world and thereafter completed a Master of Fine Arts.

After graduation, Matthews became a Zell Fellow at the University of Michigan and lectured in creative writing and composition before being named assistant director of the Helen Zell Writer’s Program at the school.

In 2016, Matthews’ first book of poetry, “Simulacra,” won the Yale Younger Poets prize, and she also received the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award and the Louis Untermeyer Scholarship in Poetry from the 2016 Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. The next year, she was named a James Merrill House fellow and was hired as an assistant professor at Bryn Mawr, teaching creative writing and Africana studies.

Since returning to Pennsylvania, Matthews has received further honors for her teaching and poetry, including the Christian Lindback Distinguished Teaching Award in 2020 and the 2024 Rosabeth Moss Kanter Change Master Fund. She was named a Pew Fellow in 2020 and an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow in 2022, the same year she was named Poet Laureate of Philadelphia by the local civic government.

Matthews joined the faculty of the MFA summer program at Warren Wilson College in 2019, and from 2021 to 2022 was a visiting scholar at Rutgers University’s Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice. She also served as a visiting professor in the MFA program at Rutgers’ campus in Camden, New Jersey.

Matthews’ poetic memoir, “Bread and Circus,” was released to rave reviews in 2024, earning her the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Poetry, the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Earlier this year, she was promoted to full professor at Bryn Mawr, where she is part of the Committee on Academic Priorities.

Outside of academics, Matthews has served in various civic roles and has judged for major awards, including with PEN America, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Poetry, and Words Without Borders. She is also developing an artists' refuge in Italy for persecuted writers and scholars.

Matthews is Bryn Mawr's second Black provost, following the tenure of Dr. Mary Osirim from 2013 to 2020. Matthews will work with other university leaders on the school’s “Next Chapter,” the latest stage in the school’s strategic planning process that began in 2022 under past president Dr. Kimberly Wright Cassidy. Part of the upcoming changes are the redevelopment and expansion of campus amenities as well as a pilot grant program for strategic innovation.

Matthews will begin a three-and-a-half-year term as provost on Thursday, Jan. 1, just before the beginning of the school’s spring semester.

Nate Tinner-Williams is co-founder and editor of Black Catholic Messenger.