Elaine Wise - Faculty Athletics Representative - Staff Directory

Staff Directory

Elaine Wise

Title:
Faculty Athletics Representative
Email:
Phone:
852-7149

A longtime member of the UofL faculty, Elaine Wise has served as UofL’s Faculty Athletics Representative in four conferences. Appointed by the President, she serves as the university’s liaison between academics and athletics, responsible for the certification of student-athlete eligibility to the NCAA and providing academic and compliance oversight as Chair of the Committee on Academic Performance of the ULAA Board. As a member of the ACC FAR Council, she serves on the on the Sportsmanship and Infractions Review Committee. She also serves as the Provost’s Liaison for Athletics.

A lifelong resident of Louisville, Wise graduated from local Seneca High School. She earned her bachelor’s degree in English from Agnes Scott College, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She earned a master’s degree in English Literature on a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship at Indiana University, and then joined the UofL faculty in the Department of English. After resuming her graduate studies, she returned to UofL to join the faculty of the Division of Humanities as Program Coordinator for the Freshman Symposium, an interdisciplinary program for first year students. She was awarded tenure in Humanities.

Wise served as Chair of the Division of Humanities from 1997 to 2016, and holds appointments in both the English and Comparative Humanities departments. Medieval and Renaissance Literature and Culture are her areas of academic specialization. In 1990, she was named the University’s Distinguished Teaching Professor; in 1995, she earned the Carnegie Foundation Kentucky Professor of the Year Award; in 2005, she received the University of Louisville Trustees Award for her service to students; in 2009, she was the recipient of the Tower Award in Education; in 2015, she was honored by the Athletics Department with the National Women and Girls in Sport Award; in 2016, A&S honored her with the Career of Service Award, and she received the University Distinguished Service Award in 2017.

An on-campus leader throughout her many years at UofL, Wise serves on the Faculty Senate, University Club Board, the Graduate Council, the A&S Committee on Planning and Budget, and is Parliamentarian for the A&S Faculty Assembly. She is a member of both the English and Comparative Humanities Personnel Committees. In the past, she was the faculty liaison to Student Senate and advisor to Mortar Board Senior Honor Society. In the community, she is a member of the Montpellier Committee of Sister Cities of Louisville and serves on the Board of the English Speaking Union.

Elaine and her husband, Barry, have one daughter, Amanda, a graduate of Wellesley College and the UofL Brandeis School of Law, who resides in Chicago, with husband Greg and children Matthew and Audrey; and a “Danish son,” Peter Preisler, a graduate of the University of Kentucky School of Architecture, who resides in Nashville, with wife Melissa and children Sophia, Jackson, and Anabel.