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Ever wonder about some of those sprawling titles that follow select professors' names in the Smith College catalogue? For more than 30 faculty members, those blue-ribbon designations signify a consummate honor: a chaired professorship. Chairs, according to Dean of the Faculty John Connolly, are "generally the highest honor an institution of learning can bestow on one of its own faculty members." They are conferred to honor outstanding scholarly achievement, he says, though occasionally a chair may also be designated for other accomplishments such as outstanding teaching. In addition to the honor of the title, a professor also receives a stipend that is added to his or her annual salary. Of some 262 tenured and tenure-track Smith professors, 38 currently hold an endowed chair position. Five newly chaired professorships were announced in October, when President Ruth Simmons named her first chair appointments. They are: C. John Burk, Elsie Damon Simonds Professor of Biological Sciences; John Davis, Priscilla Paine Van der Poel Associate Professor of Art History; Howard Nenner, Roe/Straut Professor of History; and Steven A. Williams, Gates Professor of Biological Sciences. In addition, Daniel Horowitz was named Sylvia Dlugasch Bauman Professor in American Studies, a rotating chair he will hold through June 30, 2000. Professor Williams, a member of the Smith faculty since 1982, greeted the announcement of his award with pleased surprise. Although on sabbatical leave in 1997, he was working in his Clark Science Center office the day he learned of the Gates Foundation Chaired Professorship that would become his. "The phone rang in my office, as it does all day long. But when I answered and a voice said 'Hi, this is Ruth Simmons,' I was a little taken aback," he recalls. "'Who?' I asked, because I wasn't expecting the president to be calling me. She's never called before," he explains. "Anyway, she went on to say she wanted to see me-now! So on my way up to College Hall, I was thinking to myself, 'She's probably going to ask me to work on some heinous committee.'" Williams laughs at the recollection. "But when I got there, she announced that I was being awarded the Gates professorship. 'Wow, that's great,' I remember saying. I was just so surprised. It was a nice way to be told." Surprise appears to be a common reaction to the news. Ann Rosalind Jones, a member of the faculty since 1977, says it was an unexpected honor when in 1993 she was awarded the Esther Cloudman Dunn Chair. The chair was established by friends and former students of Dunn, who taught in Smith's English department for 36 years. It recognizes distinguished scholarship and achievement in the art of teaching. Curious about Dunn, Jones did some research. "I discovered she was really quite the grand lady in literature, and she had published quite a bit as well, including books on Shakespeare and Renaissance literature," says Jones, who also is a prolific writer. She has published some 30 journal articles, with five currently in press, and written several books, including The Currency of Eros: Women's Love Lyric in Europe 15401620. Her latest book, Worn Worlds: Clothes and Identity in Renaissance England, was co-authored with husband Peter Stallybrass, and has been submitted to Cambridge University Press. Interestingly, Jones discovered that she and Dunn shared an appreciation for the 17th-century poetry of John Donne, often considered the greatest love poet in the English language. In fact, says Jones, "I found out her students fondly referred to her as Ecstasy Dunn. They started calling her that after a class in which she analyzed a John Donne poem-apparently with quite a lot of zest and dramatic gesture," Jones says with a grin. "There's a portrait of this woman that I came across on campus. In that painting, she looks like someone who would say anything, anywhere. And she dressed spectacularly. There is so much about her," says Jones, "that is appreciated by me." |
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