Bryon L. Grigsby

Bryon Lee Grigsby received his B.A. from Moravian College, his M.A. from Wake Forest University, and his Ph.D. from Loyola University Chicago, specializing in Medieval Literature, Early Modern Literature, and the History of Medicine. Bryon has studied at Oxford University as part of his master’s degree, and in 2004, he completed Harvard University’s Institute for Educational Management and the New President's Program in 2013.

Bryon is currently the President of Moravian College, his alma mater. In 2013, Moravian became an all Apple college by providing all students with a MacBook and iPad when they enter the college. Dating back to 1742, Moravian College, the sixth-oldest college in America, has always been a strong liberal arts college. Under Bryon's leadership, Moravian has added a very strong health care programs, including nursing, athletic training, occupational therapy and physical therapy.

Prior to Moravian, Bryon served as the Senior Vice President and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Shenandoah University in Winchester, VA. In this role, he is the Chief Academic Officer and acts as the president in the president’s absence. He is responsible for the administration of the academic programs and is their main advocate to the president and the Board of Trustees. He is also responsible for the implementation of the campus-wide strategic plan. Under his leadership, Shenandoah became the first environmentally-friendly ubiquitous laptop campus in 2009, deploying MacBook Pros and iPod Touches to all incoming students. He has also shepherded the new First-Year Seminar Program called “Going Global” which provides the starting point for undergraduates to become good global citizens. With the president and vice president for development, he assisted in closing out a 65 million-dollar capital campaign. Bryon has regularly taught courses in his fields of expertise, including composition, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Medieval and early modern literatures, and history of medicine and disease.

In addition to his administrative and academic role at Shenandoah, Bryon has also held administrative and academic roles at Centenary College in Hackettstown, NJ. These roles included Assistant Professor of English, Director of the Writing Center, Dean, Vice President, and Provost and Chief Operating Officer. Bryon is best known at Centenary for greatly improving the town and gown relationship; building consensus and a shared vision for the strategic plan for the institution; significantly growing adult and online curricula to improve, access, and convenience and to generate much needed revenue; and shaping undergraduate curriculum to better serve the students and increase retention. He also received a grant from NASA for an Innovative Teacher Training Program that used gaming technology to enhance learning, and assisted the president in completing a 38 million-dollar capital campaign. As an advocate for using technology to improve teaching and learning, Bryon has been recognized and interviewed by Campus Technology as a leading Chief Academic Officer for employing cutting-edge technology.

Bryon is active in the community, and is a member of the Bethlehem Rotary, Lehigh Vally Partnership, Lehigh Valley Association of Independent College, the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Pennsylvania, the Lehigh Valley Economic Develop Corporation. Other activities have included board member of the United Way of Northern Shenandoah, the Shenandoah Valley Technology Committee, and the Old Town Development Board. He has also forged international relationships between Oxford University in England; Seneca, Humber, and Sheridan Colleges in Toronto, Canada; and WuFeng Institute of Technology in Taiwan, China to deliver on-ground and online curricula and student/faculty exchanges.

As a scholar, Bryon has published two books: Pestilence in Medieval and Renaissance English Literature, which is a monograph, and Misconceptions of the Middle Ages, which is a collection of essays that he compiled with his co-editor Stephen Harris. Both works are currently in print and published by Routledge Press. He has also served as the General Editor for an online journal, entitled Medica, and was one of the founding members and inaugural President of Medica: The Society for the Study of Health and Healing in the Middle Ages. He served as an expert for The Washington Post’s article on the cultural interpretation of disease in relation to SARS, and has published articles in Shakespeare Magazine, The Writing Lab Newsletter, Modern Language Association’s Teaching Medicine and Literature, The Connecticut Review, and Essays in Medieval Studies.