*Frank Wcislo (Columbia, 1984) Dean of Commons and Associate Professor of History teaches courses on modern Russia, Eurasia, and Europe.  His research incorporates issues of politics, identity, and culture in the prerevolutionary Russian Empire. He is the author of Reforming Rural Russia: State, Local Society, and National Politics, 1855-1914 (Princeton, 1990), and is completing Tales of Imperial Russia: The Life and Times of Sergei Witte, 1849-1915, a reconsideration of imperial Russia's last decades. He is a recipient of the Jeffrey Nordhaus Prize for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching in the College of Arts and Science (1993), and the Madison Sarratt Prize for Excellence in University Undergraduate Teaching (2003).  As Dean of Commons, he plays a central role in re-envisioning education at Vanderbilt.  For more on Professor Wcislo, see his home page.