Annual Newsletter
Dear [C] HD Family,
This is the final edition of my almost annual newsletter as I step down from the Chairmanship. After nine years in the position, I will be handing off the baton to John Lucy whom many of you probably know as a CHD student, a Harper Fellow in the College, a Professor at Penn, and a colleague here since 1999. Besides being a distinguished scholar, John as been a great Master of the Social Sciences Collegiate Division and an equally fine acting dean in the Social Sciences Division. He will be a great chair.
When I became Chair, I agreed to do it for one year. Susan Golden-Meadow had artfully maneuvered the Committee out of the psychology department, and one question was how well we would do as an independent entity. Nine years later, we are arguably as fine a unit as any in our distinguished division. We are the only department in the division where, when we offer people a position, they almost always accept. And both our students and faculty continually reap honors as they do distinguished work.
You may recall that last year, our department added Don Kulick, a leading anthropologist to our faculty, and alumna Margaret Beale Spencer, who joined us from her named chair position at Penn. This year, in a period of some economic stringency for the university (more of that later), we have added two new faculty members: Eugene Raikhel is a young medical anthropologist from Princeton by way of McGill University who has studied placebos used to curb alcohol addiction among Russians; and Guanglei Hong who is a sophisticated statistician from Michigan by way of Ontario who explores the effectiveness of an array of school programs. She brings with her extensive and respected research support from the W.T Grant Foundation.
This is also the year that CHD moved its over-flow faculty from Judd Hall into 5736 South Woodlawn, the house next door. When we initially considered that house as an option, it seemed ample in size to our needs. It is already bulging at the seams.
Our faculty continues to have impacts on their various worlds. Dario Maestripieri and Jill Mateo have produced an edited volume entitled, Maternal Effects in Mammals and Jennifer Cole with (Lynn Thomas) has produced an edited volume on Love in Africa. Bert along with one of our recent students, Phil Hammack, has also put out, The story of sexual identity: Narrative perspectives on the Gay and Lesbian Life course. Margaret has been elected to the National Academy of Education. Jennifer has received an outstanding graduate teacher reward at this year’s commencement.
Students continue to earn awards as well. This year, we have Charlotte Newcombes, NSF’s, Wenner-Grens and Fulbrights. And as usual, our HD Conference Day illustrated the rich and productive minds of our second year students: Chronic Pain and Depression, the impact of Alzheimer’s disease on family caretakers, the identiy of Mulattos, the role of community colleges and the like on shaping career aspirations, and stigma among public housing residents who have been moved to mixed income housing communities, represents just a taste of subjects covered.
As this is my last year as chair, it will be my first year for explicitly asking you all for economic assistance. We all know this is not a winning year for the economy. As we reduce our budgets here and also make up for a glitch in University financial aid planning, we are badly hit in the area of discretionary funds. These are the moneys we use for students who want to do unusual research projects or exploratory research, for paying for guest lecturers and providing assistance to faculty when some extra resources will push a research project over the top or provide seed money for a new project. This may not be the best time for you either. Nonetheless, if you can manage, any contribution to our discretionary or gift fund would be more than welcome. Such support is fabulous source of leverage (almost a dirty word in this economy) for getting major support, as students are able to conduct preliminary explorations that make them more knowledgeable and experienced when applying large federal and foundation funding. A student grant of $500 may set the stage for an NSF grant that pays tuition at almost $40,000 per year which strengthens the University and provides a generous stipend that enables her or him to actually conduct his or her research at the appropriate level
I do want to express appreciation to those of you who been supportive in the past. And I also want to thank my colleagues who have made the last nine years a period of intellectual stimulation and administrative support (mostly actually fun), and our students who, in their own way, make the enterprise worthwhile.
Yours,
Richard
