Teresa Mangum is retired, but you wouldn’t know it from recent events. A professor emeritus at the University of Iowa, Mangum was just awarded the 2026 Francis Andrew March Award, given by the Associated Departments of English (ADE), one of the MLA’s Academic Program Services. ADE works to inform and train academic department leaders, rather than focusing solely on literary scholarship. The award will be presented at the MLA’s annual convention in January.
Mangum’s initial reaction to winning the award, which is in honor of Francis Andrew March, who taught at Lafayette College from 1857 to 1907 and was the first person to hold the title of Professor of English in the United States, was that she was “stunned.” But a look at her contributions to the University of Iowa and beyond make it clear why she was chosen. Since she started at the University in 1990, she has regularly served on both university and national committees and advisory boards, which, she says, “help to promote the value of literary studies and the humanities more generally locally and nationally,” including serving as VP of the National Humanities Alliance (which included lobbying Congress on behalf of the NEH), of Imagining America, and of the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes, and the Advisory boards of Victorian organizations like the Interdisciplinary 19th-Century Studies Association (she also served as president of the Association), and the North American Victorian Studies Association. She has also been active in the MLA, serving on committees that include the Executive Committee of the Delegate Assembly.
Mangum has also received numerous Mellon Foundation grants. One, “Digital Bridges,” she says, “supported humanities faculty and graduate students who wanted to develop projects using tools and approaches from the digital humanities. This grant was a collaboration with Grinnell College, so faculty members from both English and History departments were able to collaborate in fascinating ways.” The second grant, “Humanities for the Public Good,” she says, “helped faculty in humanities departments at the University of Iowa create new courses and opportunities for graduate students that prepared students for a wide range of careers, including but far beyond academic careers.” This work led to Mangum being invited to consult with about 20 other universities about their graduate programs. At the same time, she developed a careers course for undergraduate humanities majors that has since become one of several national models.
At the University of Iowa, Mangum taught in both the English Department and the Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies Department. In addition to teaching, her academic leadership positions included Interim Associate Dean of International Studies and Director of the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies at the University, which she describes as “both an interdisciplinary research center and a humanities center.” The Center offers workshops for both faculty and students, and it co-hosted the school’s Dickens Universe membership.
Mangum has also served on the Dickens Universe Executive Board and for three years was the Associate Faculty Director. But, she says, just “being part of the Dickens Universe has had an enormous influence on me in so many ways. I gained a rich awareness of the pleasures and rewards of collaborative work—from planning sessions to co-teaching classes.” Mangum say she considers the Universe “a model of public-facing humanities teaching and scholarship. The Project brilliantly connects scholars, students, and readers through their fascination with Dickens and nineteenth-century novels and culture.” Attending the Universe all these years, she says, “has given me a profound appreciation for collective learning and gratitude for the richness of sustained friendships as well as supportive scholarly networks.”
She’s also grateful for what she learned at the Universe about teaching, and, she says, “about respecting and engaging students as fellow readers.” She also learned that “a person can help strengthen departments and other groups through thoughtful, imaginative, generous attention to the needs, expectations, and varied talents within a collective. So many members of the Dickens Universe community do that kind of community-building work brilliantly, and I did my best to learn from their examples.”
Mangum has retired from the University of Iowa, but she still being invited to give talks and lead workshops nationally. She also continues to teach in the University’s “Senior College,” which offers four-week courses for retirees and alumni; she’ll offer a class on Bleak House next year. “I’ll be taking copious notes this summer,” she says, as she plans to return to Santa Cruz as a participant in 2026. Of the Universe itself, Mangum says, “I would love for all of the participants, former graduate students, and the faculty members that I’ve had the great pleasure of meeting at the Dickens Universe to know how much I’ve appreciated the curiosity, joy, and kindness they’ve shared over the years. Each person has offered new insights into Dickens’ novels.” She added, “But maybe even more importantly, each summer this community reminds me that literature really does have the power to inspire us, to quicken empathy, and to weave us into sustaining communities that brighten my life immeasurably.”
Mangum will travel to Toronto in January to accept the award at the MLA convention. As you might expect, she says, “Since I was going anyway, I proposed a roundtable in which five senior women faculty members will be reflecting on ‘generational stages’ within an academic career.” This additional work, she says, will be “an added pleasure.”