Ben Withers

Benjamin C. Withers has been dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Colorado State University since 2016. In this role, he is responsible for $43M in annual expenditures, 13 academic departments/schools and six interdisciplinary programs, 539 faculty, 107 staff, and 6780 undergraduate and graduate students. In 2020 and 2021, Ben served on the CSU President’s Pandemic Planning Team and co-chaired the Teaching Continuity and Recovery task force. He has served as a member of then President Tony Frank’s President’s Commission on Culture, the College Board’s AP Higher Education Advisory Committee, and FoCO Creates which devised the strategic plan for the City of Fort Collins.

Earning a Ph.D. in art history from the University of Chicago focusing on early medieval manuscripts, Ben has taught at Indiana University South Bend and University of Kentucky before coming to Colorado State. With three books/edited collections and nearly 40 peer-reviewed publications, his scholarship has been supported by the NEH, The Indiana University President’s Arts and Humanities Initiative, University of Kentucky, and The Ameritech Foundation, among others. He has been a department chair, honors program director, associate provost for undergraduate education, and dean of undergraduate studies. Ben has a track record of expanding and strengthening undergraduate programs, promoting multidisciplinary collaborations, fundraising, and supporting diversity and inclusion.