02/29/2024
By Joseph Hartman

You are cordially invited to celebrate this year’s University Professor, Sandra Lim, on Thursday, April 18 at 4 p.m. in Coburn Hall 255 where she will deliver the Distinguished University Professor Lecture, "Poetry as Lyric Knowledge: How Does Poetry Help You How to Live?" A reception will follow.

Please register online to let us know you are joining us!

Professor Sandra Lim of the Department of English is a highly regarded writer and teacher. Lim exemplifies “that great combination we seek in our faculty, of excelling in her work — national and international recognition for her poetry — and also excelling in the classroom,” according to Chancellor Julie Chen.

Lim has written three books — “Loveliest Grotesque,” winner of the Kore Press First Book Award; “The Wilderness,” winner of the Barnard Women Poets Prize; and, most recently, “The Curious Thing.” Her writing has been published widely, appearing in The New York Review of Books, Poetry, The New Republic, The Baffler and The New York Times Magazine, among other outlets.

In 2023, Lim won the prestigious Jackson Poetry Prize, which was judged by former U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo and other notable poets. Lim has also received a 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship, a 2020 Arts and Letters Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Pushcart prizes, and residency fellowships from MacDowell, the Vermont Studio Center and the Getty Foundation. “What Sandra has done as a poet, teacher and colleague makes her so deserving of this honor,” said Jonathan Silverman, Chair of the English Department, who nominated Lim for the Distinguished University Professor honor.

Lim is the 16th professor to receive the award since it was established in 2008. Her three-year term as Distinguished University Professor will run through 2026.