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On the Tenure Track
The new academic year brings these new tenure-track professors to the Wellesley faculty:
Rupa Chakrabarti, Assistant
Professor of Economics, recently earned her Ph.D in Economics
form Cornell University, where she received the H.J. Davenport
Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award in June 1995. Ms. Chakrabarti
majored in macroeconomics and minored in both monetary economics and
development economics. Her dissertation entitled "Macroeconomic
Implications of Endogenous Fertility and Migration," is a work in
progress.
Roxanne L. Euben, Assistant Professor of Political Science, comes to Wellesley after two years teaching at the University of South Carolina. She is a political theorist with a special interest in the relationship between Western and non-Western political thought. Her Ph.D. dissertation, which she was revising for publication, was entitled "Comparative Political Theory, Islamic Fundamentalism, and the Limits of Modern Rationalism." She has studied Arabic at Middlebury College and Georgetown University and Hebrew in Jerusalem; she received her doctorate form Princeton University.
Anastasia Karakasidou, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, is a social anthropologist who received her doctorate from Columbia University of 1992. She specializes in themes of nationhood and identity; religion and ideology; gender and social stratification; narrative and history; and anthropological theory. She is the author of Fields of Wheat, Hills of Blood: Passages to Nationhood in Greek Macedonia, 1870-1990 (Chicago University Press, 1997) and has written a number of articles on the ideology of nationhood in Greece and the Balkans.
Megan M. Kerr,
Assistant Professor of Mathematics, joins the Wellesley faculty
after two years as J.W. Young Research Instructor at Dartmouth
College. Her research is in global Riemannian geometry, studying
invariant structures on Lie groups and homogenous spaces. This area
of research, she reports, involves analysis and group theory as well
as a surprising amount of representation theory. She received her
doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania.
Filomina
Steady, Professor of Africana Studies, is a social anthropologist
specializing in women and sustainable development, the environment
and development, and women's studies. Most recently, she spent four
years as a visiting professor/fellow at the University of Wisconsin's
Institute for Environmental Studies. She has served as a special
advisor, deputy director, and consultant to several United Nations
agencies and institutions and is on the advisory boards of the
Encyclopedia of the Third World Women, the Association of African
Women for Research and Development, and the Women's World Summit
Foundation. She received her doctorate for Oxford University, Oxford,
England, in 1974.
Students, Faculty,
and Staff Demo New Facilities and Technology
The Betsy Wood Knapp Media & Technology Center opened on September 2 to delighted comments from members of the university community impressed by its facilities. The opening ceremony included faculty, students, and staff demonstrating the multimedia equipment with projects in the hard sciences, languages, art, music, and social sciences.
The Center, a bright, modern space on the ground floor of Clapp Library, features Wellesley's first TV video production facility, with two editing suites and eight tracks of audio. Plans are already in the works to tape discussion groups, interviews, and workshops for broadcast over WCVN, the Wellesley College Video Network.
The Center also boasts 43 Macintosh and Gateway computers equipped with professional-level multimedia software such as
Macromedia Director and Adobe Photoshop; a slide production area; four project rooms; a state-of-the-art foreign language learning center; and two lounge areas. One of the lounges houses a kiosk with multiple televisions showing student-produced multimedia projects and WCVN programming.
Funded by a $2 million gift from Betsy Wood Knapp '64 and her
husband Cleon T. Knapp, the Center is meant to serve as a way for
Wellesley faculty to integrate technology into their classrooms and
allow faculty and students to experiment with new ways of teaching
and learning. Ms. Knapp, a trustee of Wellesley College and a founder
of Wellesley's Business Leadership Council, is a pioneer in the use
of new technologies and new media in business.
Nancy Braitmayer '55 listens as
a student explains new Knapp Center workstations.
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Students, staff, and community
members of all ages came together on Wellesley's campus on Saturday,
October 18, to participate in the second annual "Fair Grounds: A
Public Celebration of Landscape at Wellesley College."
Scientists, musicians, horticulturists, artists, athletes, and historians took part in the festival of music, dance, discussion, theater, and campus tours, held in the Academic Quadrangle just beyond the Davis Museum Plaza and other locations throughout the campus.
Wellesley's campus was inspired by Frederick Law Olmsted, the famed landscape designer who created the string of parks encircling Boston known as the "Emerald Necklace." The Davis Museum, which is currently showing a major photographic exhibition of Olmsted's work, created this year's "Fair Grounds" festival to focus attention on efforts now underway to plan for the future of Wellesley's landscape.
Find out more about the
master
planning project on the Web.
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Sylvia Hiestand, Director of International Studies, spent October 19&endash;29 in China as a member of a group of American college and university administrators meeting with officials at universities there.
Hiestand was one of seven members of NAFSA: Association of International Educators who participated with members of the Chinese Education Association for International Exchange (CEAIE) in a seminar entitled "Study Abroad Opportunities in China: Sino&endash;US Perspectives." They also met with CEAIE members at universities in the cities of Beijing and Xian.
During the seminar, which took place in Beijing, participants discussed the issues involved in establishing links between institutions
in China and the United States and explored ways to develop and manage foreign study programs and provide support services for participating students. One particular focus was the differences between Chinese and American teaching methodologies and how these differences affect students and teachers who participate in exchanges.
Earlier in October, Hiestand met briefly with a high Chinese education official who was in Boston to visit local educational institutions.
Wellesley currently has six students from China as well as five
from Taiwan.
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Frank Bidart has been awarded the 1997 O.B. Hardison, Jr. Poetry Prize, an award given annually to an American poet who exemplifies "the spirit of inquiry, imagination, daring, and scholarship" which characterized the life and work of the late former director of the Folger Shakespeare Library. To qualify, recipients must have published poetry of the highest caliber, have made important contributions as teachers, and be committed to the work of furthering the understanding of poetry and poetics. In addition to teaching in Wellesley's Department of English, Bidart is currently working on the Collected Poems of Robert Lowell. He was nominated for a National Book Award in the poetry category for his book, Desire.
Amy Sommer Gifford '87 is co-producer of the acclaimed and controversial documentary, "Waco: The Rules of Engagement," which made its Boston-area debut at the Brattle Theater in late October. Called "grim, disturbing...but...necessary and important" and "painstaking, powerful, and incendiary" by critics, "Waco" premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, was the lead film at the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival at New York's Lincoln Center, and was chosen Best Film of the Year by The International Society of Documentary Film.
Shirley Gee's "Never In My Lifetime," a 1996 production directed by Wellesley College Theater Director Nora Hussey, has won the 37th annual New England Theatre Conference Moss Hart Memorial Award in the College Division. The award recognizes and encourages outstanding and meaningful theatrical productions. "Never In My Lifetime," a love story set in Ireland's "Troubles," was presented at the Ruth Nagel Jones Theatre in Alumnae Hall in November 1996 and starred both Wellesley College students and Boston-area actors.
Professor of Sociology Jonathan Imber has been appointed editor-in-chief of Society, effective March 1, 1998. The flagship of social science publishing house Transaction Publishers, the 35-year-old journal is the leading international publication covering major social and political issues from a social science perspective. It features articles, commentary, and book reviews by political scientists, sociologists, psychologists, economists, and other specialists in various new areas of the human and behavioral sciences. Imber's own work ranges from the sociology of medicine to the history of social theory.
Mary Lefkowitz, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Greek and Latin, has been made a member of the Templeton Honor Rolls for Education in a Free Society, an awards program for excellence in higher education. Honorees are chosen for their "commitment to scholarship and to teaching the interdependence of political freedom, the market economy, and the moral principles that sustain a free society."
Mathematics professor Patrick Morton received the
Mathematical Association of America's Lester R. Ford Award this
summer for his article, "A Case Study in Mathematical Research: The
Golay-Rudin-Shapiro Sequence" (The American Mathematical
Monthly 103, December 1996). He shares the award with co-author
John Brillhart of the University of Arizona.
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This fall, President Diana Chapman Walsh honored these outstanding members of the college staff by presenting them with the Presidential Merit Award:
Nancy Bowman, Administrative Assistant in the Art Department, who joined the staff in 1990;
Norma Calder-Juliani, Events Manager in Special Events, who has been at Wellesley since 1982;
Guy DiPirro, Manager of Custodial Services, who started working here in 1979;
Angie Evans, Administrator of Institutional Research, a Wellesley staff member since 1988;
Gail Jong, Associate Director of External Relations for the Annual Giving Program, who joined the staff in 1987;
Claire Loranz, Digital Technologies and Documents Librarian
in the Documents Library, who came to Wellesley in 1969;
Nancy Mackay, Administrative Assistant in the Writing Program, who joined the staff in 1987;
Peter Raymond, Severance Head of House, here since 1989;
Ruth Samia, Coordinator of First Year Office, a member of the Wellesley community since 1976;
Irma Tryon, Director of Recruiting Programs at the Center for Work and Service, who has been here since 1978; and
Jarlath Waldron, Co-Director of the new Knapp Center, who joined the Information Technology Service office in 1994
President Walsh thanked each award-winner for making "extraordinary contributions day in and day out, with a spirit far beyond mere competence, a spirit full of imagination, intelligence, initiative, wit and grace."
At Opening Convocation, President Diana Chapman Walsh invited every member of the college community to take part in a series of continuing conversations intended to help Wellesley maintain its history of intellectual excellence at a time of rapid change.
"We need a creative synthesis of the best thinking of everyone on campus," Walsh said. "Each conversations is part of a larger process that will be the unifying work of the year, weaving together the many strands of institutional self-assessment, reflection and planning."
These are the "12 conversations," with contacts:
1. Prepare for our 10-year reaccreditation through a self-study committee led by Nancy H. Kolodny, Dean of the College and Professor of Chemistry, Andrew Shennan, Associate Professor of History, and Nancy F. Weinstein, Director of Corporate and Foundation Giving and Special Assistant to the President.
2. Debate new proposals for the evaluation and development of teaching, a discussion David Pillemer, Professor of Psychology, will lead under the aegis of the Learning and Teaching Center and the ACE-Kellogg project, led by Patricia M. Byrne, Executive Assistant to the President.
3. Redesign the first-year experience, the second year of a two-year process being led jointly by Lorraine Garnett Ward, a former Class Dean on special assignment to this project, and Susan S. Silbey, Professor of Sociology. This, too, comes under the ACE-Kellogg umbrella.
4. Set priorities for global education, a project already well advanced through the efforts of a large multi-constituency committee being led by Jens Kruse, Associate Dean of the College and Professor of German, building on Professor of Political Science Craig N. Murphy's internal consultant's report.
5. Establish the appropriate role of instructional technology in student learning and faculty research and teaching, based on the recommendations of a task force being led by Lee Cuba, Associate Dean of the College and Professor of Sociology, and Micheline E. Jedrey, Vice President for Information Services.
6. Explore philosophical and practical issues related to experiential learning through the vehicle of a new faculty fellows program being directed by Professor Cuba and Joanne Murray, Associate Dean of Students.
7. Study our interdisciplinary and interdepartmental offerings, as the Committee on Curriculum and Instruction pursues questions raised during the curriculum review. CCI is chaired by Professor Cuba.
8. Discuss multiculturalism in a continuation of the work of the ad hoc committee requested last year by a student coalition and led by Marcellus Andrews, Professor of Economics and Doris Saintill '97. Gerdes Fleurant, Professor of Music and Director of Multicultural Planning and Policy, Linda Brothers, Director of Equal Opportunity and Multicultural Programs, and Colby Lenz '99 will lead the discussion this year, coordinating with appropriate committees of Academic Council, Administrative Council and College Government.
9. Re-examine our basic goals for student life in anticipation of a search for a new Dean; a special task force, chaired by Andrea Levitt, Professor of French, will conduct a brief and probing community-wide consultation through September and October.
10. Engage a campus-wide dialogue on the possible roles of religious pluralism and spirituality in higher education, an initiative Victor H. Kazanjian, Dean of Religious and Spiritual Life will lead with the help of an inclusive committee.
11. Slow the growth in our operating budget and rationalize the capital budgeting process, two mandates from the Trustees that will be the responsibility of the Advisory Committee on Budgetary Affairs, chaired by John S. Cameron, Professor of Biological Sciences and Director of the Science Center, in collaboration with Rene Stewart Poku, Interim Vice President of Finance and Administration.
12. Produce a campus master plan by May,
encompassing all major building and landscaping projects for the
foreseeable future. A steering committee led by Ellen Gill Miller,
immediate past president of the Alumnae Association and former
Trustee, Kenneth P. Winkler, Professor of Philosophy, and Patricia M.
Byrne, Executive Assistant to the President, will engage widespread
community involvement, in consultation with an Advisory Board
co-chaired by Ellen Gill Miller and Peter J. Fergusson, Professor of
Art History.
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Elizabeth Lawson elawson@wellesley.edu
Sasha Pfau apfau@wellesley.edu
Office for Public Information
Date created: 2/11/98
Last updated: 2/9/99
Page expires: 9/99