I am grateful to announce that I have been named the new Mark and Elisabeth Eccles Professor in English. The Eccles family has long supported the mission of the department. Mark Eccles was a Shakespeare scholar and Elisabeth Eccles was an editor at UW press. Mark Eccles was particularly well-known for working with biographical data extracted from public records. Perhaps he would appreciate this picture (please click on link) owned by The Wisconsin Historical Society of his son Bob (currently a member of the department’s Board of Visitors) competing in the West High School Spelling Bee in 1961.