Doreen Fowler & Dorice Williams Elliott

book that has become the go-to study on this topic in the field), and Transported to Botany Bay: Class, National Identity and the Literary Figure of the Australian Convict in 2019.

Reviewers of Transported to Botany Bay applauded the book’s “careful illumination of lesser-known novels published by convict authors… reminding us of the ways in which mass-migration, voluntary and involuntary, has shaped the contours of the modern world.”

Elliott has also published 16 articles and book chapters, on Jane Austen, Elizabeth Gaskell, and Hannah More, and on a variety of topics including women’s philanthropy, settler narratives, and social class.

In 2003, Elliott became the first-ever woman chair of the English Department, leading it for two terms (and another interim semester in 2017). During her time as Chair she oversaw multiple hires and promotion and tenure cases: as one of her colleagues puts it, Elliott guided and mentored new colleagues “with what you might call wise optimism. Always measured and pragmatic in her opinion, she was also always supportive and encouraging. It was clear that she was doing and would do everything in her power to help her junior colleagues succeed.” and made recommendations about how we could better serve our graduate students, and presided for many years over the awarding of funds for graduate student travel.

Professor Emerita Dorice Williams Elliott

Dorice Williams Elliott came to KU in 1996 with her husband Bob Elliott, former instructor and staff member in the English Department. With the retirement of her senior colleagues in the field by the early 2000s, Elliott became the lead Victorianist in the department. She published two monographs, The Angel out of the House: Philanthropy and Gender Nineteenth Century England in 2002 (a

This is the same attitude she has brought to graduate student mentoring. Having served on innumerable graduate committees over the years, frequently as Chair, Elliott is ready with tough advice and critique when needed, but it is always delivered from a place of sincere admiration, respect, and confidence in the project and the person. In graduate defenses, she has always put her students’ experience and opportunity ahead of her own need to make a point. Elliott’s stellar teaching at both the graduate and undergraduate levels was recognized with the department’s Mabel Fry Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching in 2001 and its Conger-Gabel Teaching Professorship from 2016-2019, as well as the university-wide William T. Kemper Fellowship for Teaching Excellence in 2010.

In 2012, Elliott spearheaded the department’s assessment efforts, long before they were required and institutionalized and before the creation of the KU Core, and she has led assessment guru ever since. She has overseen the English Department assessment of all Core Goals and of the undergraduate major as well as submitting all the yearly documentation to the requisite university committees.