Lois Agnew, a professor of writing and rhetoric and a gifted leader, scholar and teacher, is the vice chancellor, provost and chief academic officer at Syracuse University.
Agnew previously served as associate provost for academic programs from 2023-24, interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S) from 2022-23, A&S associate dean of curriculum, innovation and pedagogy from 2017-22 and chair of the Department of Writing Studies, Rhetoric and Composition from 2012-17. She joined the Syracuse University faculty in 2004.
Among Agnew’s academic honors and awards received at Syracuse are the 2015 William Wasserstrom Prize for Graduate Teaching, recognizing exceptional teaching and mentoring of graduate students; the 2011 Excellence in Graduate Education Faculty Recognition Award; and the 2007 Meredith Teaching Recognition Award.
Agnew’s research expertise is in rhetorical history and theory, with a focus on classical and British rhetoric and rhetorics of health, medicine and disability. She has published over 25 journal articles and book chapters and is the author of three books: “Fitter, Happier: The Eugenic Strain in Twentieth-Century Cancer Rhetoric” (University of Alabama Press, 2024); “Thomas De Quincey: British Rhetoric’s Romantic Turn” (Rhetoric in the Modern Era Series, Southern Illinois University Press, 2012) and “Outward, Visible Propriety: Stoic Philosophy and Eighteenth-Century British Rhetorics” (University of South Carolina Press, 2008).