Come and learn about leadership from a university/community leader during our 18:83 Speaker Series!  Each session will be at 2:30pm on a Wednesday in the Memorial Union (1st floor Social Stair).  Each speaker will be focusing on leadership and personal/professional development for students.

Eric Carl Link joined the University of North Dakota as provost and vice president for academic affairs in July 2021.  Prior to coming to the University of North Dakota, Link served on the leadership teams of several universities. He served as provost and senior vice president for academic and student affairs at the University of Houston Downtown, a comprehensive public university of 15,000 students in the heart of Houston, Texas. Before that, Link was dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Purdue University Fort Wayne, and before that he was associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and chair of the Department of English at the University of Memphis. He also served as the head of the Department of Language and Literature at North Georgia College and State University, in addition to a variety of other administrative roles.

Link earned his Ph.D. in American literature from Purdue University. An internationally recognized and award winning teacher and scholar, Link’s teaching and research fields span the field of American literature, with specializations in both 19th-Century American Literature and Science Fiction. He is the author of four books, the editor of six volumes, and he is the co-editor, with Donald Pizer, of the Norton Critical Edition of The Red Badge of Courage (2008). He also founded and edited, with Steve Frye, the journal ALN: The American Literary Naturalism Newsletter. Dr. Link has also published over fifty essays on topics ranging across the field of American literary studies. His scholarship has won multiple awards, and in Spring 2015 he was presented with the Distinguished Research Award in Humanities from the University of Memphis. He was also named the Distinguished Professor of Teaching and Learning at North Georgia College in 2007, where he held an endowed chair from 1999-2008.

Link has twice served as a Fulbright Senior Scholar, most recently at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland (2012), and before that in Lutsk, Ukraine, where he taught American literature and consulted on program and curriculum development at Lesya Ukrainka Volyn National University (2008). He has also lectured and presented on a variety of research topics at universities in China, Iceland, and England.