From the issue dated May 23, 2003
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Columbia U. Snares NYU's Robin D.G. Kelley; Louis Caldera Will Lead U. of New Mexico; NYU's Business School Adds a ProfessorBy JENNIFER K. RUARK and JULIANNE BASINGERUPTOWN BOUND: Robin D.G. Kelley, a noted professor of history and Africana studies, will leave New York University this fall for Columbia University. His decision ends a long campaign to bring him there by Manning Marable, the director of Columbia's Institute for Research in African-American Studies and a professor of history, political science, and public affairs. "We stole him away," says Mr. Marable gleefully. "I've wanted to recruit Robin ever since I came to Columbia to establish the institute in 1993. ... Foremost within his generation, Robin embodies the critically engaged, socially aware scholarship that interrogates the black urban experience in contemporary America." Mr. Kelley, 41, currently chair of NYU's history department, was also being courted by Henry Louis (Skip) Gates Jr. at Harvard University, but Harvard reportedly could not make a concrete offer in time. (And Mr. Kelley says he wanted to stay in New York.) The historian's official home will be in the anthropology department. "There are already several wonderful scholars [in the history department] who do work in black studies," explains Mr. Marable, naming Samuel Roberts, Winston James, and Barbara J. Fields. The anthropology department, headed by Nicholas B. Dirks, has become increasingly interdisciplinary. Mr. Dirks, who himself has a Ph.D. in history, has also tried for years to get Mr. Kelley. What finally sealed the deal, says Mr. Kelley, was the faculty that Mr. Marable has attracted to the institute, including the literary scholars Robert G. O'Meally and Farah J. Griffin. Like the new recruit, Ms. Griffin did a stint as a visiting professor at Columbia's Center for Jazz Studies. Mr. Kelley says that was "the best year of my academic career, despite the fact that I got hit by a car." He is also excited about the prospect of working with the composer George Lewis, whom Columbia's music department has just lured away from the University of California at San Diego. Mr. Kelley's appointment will begin with a year off from teaching, which will give him a chance to work on his biography of Thelonious Monk. After being a central figure in NYU's history department -- at one point directing 40 dissertations -- "I have an opportunity to be a marginal member of a discipline," he jokes. "It was a difficult decision, because I love this place," he says. "But I don't think there'll ever be another opportunity to bring this configuration of scholars together under a vision of scholarship that is as engaged with the community." The arrival of Ms. Griffin "made a huge difference for a lot of people," says Mr. Kelley. "Columbia's profile in African-American studies can only rise." (Ms. Griffin will take the helm of the institute when Mr. Marable steps down on July 1.) *** THE OUTSIDER: Regents at the University of New Mexico have decided that in economic hard times, the ability to work magic with donors takes precedence over experience in academe. So last week, over the objections of some faculty members, the Board of Regents hired Louis Caldera as the university's president. Mr. Caldera, 47, was secretary of the Army during the Clinton administration and started eArmyU, an online-education program for soldiers. Mr. Caldera will begin in July. His only academic experience was in the California State University System, where he has been vice chancellor for university advancement since June 2001. Mr. Caldera, a son of Mexican immigrants and a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, also holds graduate degrees in law and business from Harvard University. But New Mexico's Faculty Senate said in a vote last month that Mr. Caldera's lack of academic experience made him an unacceptable candidate for the presidency. Still, Beverly H. Burris, a sociology professor and the Faculty Senate's president, says faculty members are "more than willing to give [Mr. Caldera] a chance." And he believes he can win them over: "I think it's going to be fine." *** COMINGS AND GOINGS: Sheila W. Wellington, who has spent the last decade as president of Catalyst, a nonprofit group that works to advance the roles of women in business, will become a professor of management at New York University's business school. She was previously the secretary of Yale University and a faculty member at its School of Public Health. http://chronicle.com Section: Short Subjects Volume 49, Issue 37, Page A9
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Copyright © 2003 by The Chronicle of Higher Education