As Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, Dr. Earns serves as the leader and administrator of the University's undergraduate and graduate academic programs. He reports directly to Chancellor Richard Wells, serves as a member of the Chancellor's Administrative Staff, and, as Provost, acts in place of the Chancellor in his absence.

In August 2002 Dr. Earns assumed the position of Associate Vice Chancellor, where he was primarily concerned with supporting the research and teaching needs of the faculty and instructional academic staff. His responsibilities included personnel issues, faculty development and retention, and faculty-administrative relations. He was named Interim Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs in 2004, assuming the permanent role in 2005.

Dr. Earns earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in social science (international relations) and education from Michigan State University in 1973, a masters of arts in Asian Studies from the University of Hawaii at Manoa in 1977, and a Ph. D. in history from the University of Hawaii at Manoa in 1987. He has been a professor at UW Oshkosh in the department of history since 1987, and served as chair of that department from 1993 to 1998 and acting chair in spring 1999, spring 2000 and the 2001-2002 academic year.

In 1999, Dr. Earns received the John McNaughton Rosebush Professorship for excellence in teaching, scholarship and public service at UW Oshkosh. He has also received a National Endowment for the Humanities History Teaching Alliance Grant, a Japan Foundation Grant, and a Fulbright English Fellowship to Japan. As a research specialist on Nagasaki, Earns lived and worked in Japan for six years and has conducted research in Nagasaki every summer since coming to Oshkosh in1987. He recently published his second book on Nagasaki (Westerners of the Nagasaki Foreign Settlement) and has authored more than twenty journal articles on the city. In addition, Earns co-edited Crossroads: A Journal of Nagasaki History and Culture from 1993 to 1998, and presently co-edits two web sites on Nagasaki.

Contact Information

Office of the Provost and Vice Chancellor
University of Wisconsin Oshkosh
800 Algoma Blvd.
Dempsey Hall Room 335
Oshkosh, WI 54901

Phone: 920-424-2220
Fax: 920-424-0247
E-mail: earns@uwosh.edu