Derek Collins is the Associate Dean for the Humanities in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, and Professor of Greek and Latin in the Department of Classical Studies. He has written three books and more than a dozen articles on Greek poetry and the history of Greek religion and magic, and translated scholarly work from French into English. Dean Collins studied at UCLA, received his Ph.D. from Harvard University, and joined the faculty of UM in 1999. His most recent book is about the history of magic in ancient Greece (Magic in the Ancient Greek World, Blackwell, 2008), and its legacy in Rome and the early medieval period.

As a divisional Dean, he has primary responsibility for 19 UM departments, centers and institutes, including all of the language departments; he presides over promotions of faculty at all ranks; he’s involved with the recruitment and retention of faculty at all ranks; and he manages all academic affairs issues.

A frequent traveler to the Mediterranean, Dean Collins toured with UM alumni in both 2007 and 2009 to the Greek islands and Turkey. He has traveled extensively throughout Europe, and in 2010 returned to France, especially to la Côte d’Azur, which is among his favorite parts of the Mediterranean coastline.