Greetings! Salve! Bonjour! Guten Tag! Buon Giorno! Buenos días!

Welcome to the many worlds of Dr. Madison U. Sowell, Jr. The above salutations are given in order of the languages and literary traditions I have formally studied (English, Latin, French, German, Italian, and Spanish).

It probably won't surprise first-time readers of "about.me" to learn that professionally I am an educator. I live and work, however, in many worlds: I am also a husband and a father, a volunteer, an international traveler and tour guide, a gentleman farmer, a joint collector with my wife of early ballet prints (produced between 1490 and 1890), a Dante scholar, a writer and editor, a Sunday School teacher, a pianist and organist, a higher ed administrator, and an eBay enthusiast.

A recent avocation is that of blogger. See: https://madisonsowell.com/.

From 2008 until 2017 I was associated with Southern Virginia University, first as a member of the Board of Trustees and then as Interim Provost and Provost (chief academic officer). I have also served on the board of the First Freedom Center, a champion of religious liberty around the world.

In 2018 I was awarded the Howard D. Rothschild Fellowship to conduct research at Harvard University's Houghton Library. I was also appointed as Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs at Tusculum University in Greeneville, Tennessee.

My graduate degrees (master's and doctorate in Romance Languages and Literatures) were from Harvard University. Prior to my service at Southern Virginia, I was a three-term department chair, associate dean of undergraduate education, and Honors Program director at Brigham Young University. I also presided over the Italy Milan Mission as a volunteer lay member for the LDS Church for three years (1998-2001).

Someone I do not know published a wikipedia article about me that is mostly accurate. You can check it out at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madison_U._Sowell

You can also click the button above to watch a video of a convocation speech I delivered at SVU. Other videos can be found on YouTube. Interested parties (no spammers, s.v.p.) can contact me via Facebook, LinkedIn, or email:

[email protected]