March
21, 2003
Quidnunc
Liberal Ideas
Abolish academic departments. Get rid of tenure. Make
the teaching of undergraduates a top priority. These are some
of philosopher Robert Solomon’s suggestions to improve higher
education and reaffirm the democratic ideals of the liberal arts.
Solomon, Quincy Lee Centennial Professor of Philosophy at the
University of Texas in Austin, where he teaches in the Plan II
Honors Program, and the author of more than thirty books (including
Up the University: Re-creating Higher Education in America
[1993]) on a wide range of subjects, came to campus at the end
of last month and engaged in dialogue with about twenty faculty
members, President Joanne V. Creighton, and three students. Solomon’s
seminar was the first in a series planned by the Weissman Center,
in conjunction with the president’s office, on issues in
the liberal arts. In Up the University, Solomon calls
departments “cages” in his discussion of the relationship
between administrative and curricular units. For the MHC event,
the philosopher was asked to elaborate on this notion, “one
that has particular resonance as we consider new ways of strengthening
existing affinities here on campus,” noted Weissman Center
codirector Karen Remmler.
The
Greniers |
Irish Eyes
Are Smiling
Congratulations
to James Moynihan, MHC plumbing supervisor, whose daughter Mary
Kate has been crowned Holyoke’s 2003 Grand Colleen. A graduate
of Holyoke High School, Mary Kate is presently a sophomore at
Assumption College, where she is a dean’s list student majoring
in accounting. As Grand Colleen, she will attend Holyoke’s
fifty-second annual St. Patrick’s Parade on Sunday, March
23. “The parade is an all-Holyoke reunion, a real community
affair that crosses all ethnic lines,” said James Moynihan.
Mary Kate and her proud family will visit Ireland this summer
using tickets that were among many Grand Colleen prizes.
Board News
In meetings March 5–9, MHC’s Board of Trustees reviewed
and discussed the second public draft of The Plan for Mount
Holyoke 2010 and met with members of the Faculty Planning
and Budget Committee, Faculty Conference Committee, and Student
Conference Committee. It voted to set the tuition rate for 2003–2004
at $29,170 and the room and board rate at $8,580 for a total fee
of $37,750, a 5.9% increase over last year’s charges. It
also voted to promote eight members of the faculty. Effective
July 1, Lois Brown (English and African American and African studies),
Jeremy King (history and international relations), and Geoffrey
Sumi (classics) will receive tenure and the rank of associate
professor. Rachel Fink (biological sciences), John Grayson (religion),
Stephen Jones (Russian and Eurasian studies), Karen Remmler (German
studies) and Christopher Rivers (French) will be promoted to the
rank of professor. The board reviewed the financial challenges
facing the institution resulting from the downturn in financial
markets and rising costs in financial aid.
Bellagio Fellowship
Donald Weber, professor and chair of English, has received
a fellowship to the Bellagio Center for his project titled “The
Anxiety of Belonging: Multiculturalism and Identity Politics in
U.S. and U.K. Literary and Popular Culture.” He will compare
how the idea of belonging and the constructions of ethnic identity
are explored in the literary and popular cultures of the United
States and United Kingdom. On a theoretical level, he wants to
explore the charge of French sociologists, such as Bourdieu, that
multiculturalism is another example of American academic imperialism,
together with the notion that, due to American sociologists, the
term “identity” has become overburdened and lost all
explanatory power. Fellowships to the Bellagio Center, a historic
estate on the shores of Lake Como run by the Rockefeller Foundation,
are highly prestigious and go to established scholars judged by
their peers to be doing cutting-edge work. Notes Dean of Faculty
Donal O’Shea, “Incredibly, this is the fourth such
award to MHC faculty members in as many years, surely a record.”
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