Dieter Wanner

As Interim Associate Provost for the Office of International Affairs, Dieter Wanner provides the leadership to help facilitate international opportunities for Ohio State’s students, faculty and staff. He is responsible for overseeing the activities of the study abroad programs, international student and scholar services, the Mershon Center for International Security Studies and five area studies centers.

Wanner’s professional background is in the area of linguistics, giving him a distinct perspective on Ohio State’s mission to achieve distinction in international education, scholarship and public service.

Prior to his appointment as Interim Associate Provost in January 2007, Wanner served as Chair of Ohio State’s Department of Spanish and Portuguese from 1996 to 2004. During his tenure, and through the collaborative efforts of faculty and staff, the department was able to raise its profile in research, and strengthen graduate curricula. Additionally, the department developed its Ph.D. program in Hispanic Linguistics, thereby further increasing the quality of its graduate students and their professional placements. Other milestones during this period included the reorganization of the language program, substantial growth in the Spanish major program and the implementation of a cohesive Spanish honors option.

Wanner has been actively involved in committee work a on all levels at Ohio State. He has been a committee member and/or chaired committees focused on faculty searches, promotion and tenure, diversity, affirmative action and disability, College of Humanities Budget Priorities, and University Senate (Committees on Academic Freedom and Responsibility, Fiscal, and Hearing), among others.

Wanner’s areas of specialization as a professor are in Spanish historical linguistics, historical (morpho) syntax, comparative Romance linguistics and Italian historical linguistics and dialects. He earned his doctorate from the University of Zürich (Switzerland) and held teaching positions at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign before joining Ohio State in 1988.

His work has been honored with numerous research awards including an NEH Fellowship, 1983-84, for work on the development of Romance unstressed pronouns; and the Research Award ("Forschungspreis"), from the Alexander-von-Humboldt Foundation (Germany), for a year of research at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg i. Br., 1994-95. Wanner's complete Curriculum Vitae can be viewed at his web site.