Rev. Hugh R. Page, Jr.

Hugh R. Page, Jr. is the University’s vice president for belonging, engagement, and mission and advisor to the President. In this role, he serves as a strategic leader working closely with Father Dowd and University leadership to foster a spirit of openness and welcome university wide that is consistent with the values, ideals, and charism of the Congregation of Holy Cross; as well as the ethical precepts animating Martin Luther King, Jr.’s concept of “Beloved Community.”

Page served as vice president and associate provost for undergraduate affairs from 2013-2022, dean of the First Year of Studies from 2005-2019. He has been a faculty member at the University since 1992 and holds appointments in theology and Africana studies. He has also served as associate dean for undergraduate studies in Notre Dame’s College of Arts and Letters and director of the African and African American Studies Program. He was instrumental in the development of the latter into the Department of Africana Studies, which he then chaired.

An Episcopal priest, Page holds a bachelor’s in history from Hampton University, two master’s degrees from The General Theological Seminary in New York, a doctorate in ministry from the Graduate Theological Foundation, and a master’s and doctorate in Near Eastern languages and civilizations from Harvard University. He joined the Notre Dame faculty in 1992 and, in 2001, received a Presidential Award for distinguished service to the University.

Page’s research interests include early Hebrew poetry; Africana biblical interpretation; the role of mysticism and esotericism in Anglican and Africana spiritualities; and the Blues aesthetic as theological and hermeneutical paradigm. His most recent publications include (as sole author) Israel’s Poetry of Resistance: Africana Perspectives on Early Hebrew Verse (Fortress, 2013); as general editor—with associate editors Valerie Bridgeman, Stacy Davis, Cheryl Kirk-Duggan, Madipoane Masenya (Ngwan’a Mphahlele), and Rodney S. Sadler, Jr.—The Africana Bible: Reading Israel’s Scriptures from Africa and the African Diaspora, 2nd ed. (Fortress, 2024); as co-editor (with Gale A. Yee and Matthew J. M. Coomber) the Fortress Commentary on the Old Testament and Apocrypha (Fortress, 2014), (with Stephen C. Finley and Margarita Simon Guillory) Esotericism in African American Religious Experience: “There is a Mystery” … (Brill, 2015), and (with Gay L. Byron) Black Scholars Matter: Visions, Struggles, and Hopes in Africana Biblical Studies (SBL Press, 2022).