From the issue dated December 19, 2003
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Anthropology Dept. at Brown U. Adds 3 Senior Professors; Faculty Senate at Rockland Community College Censures Trustees
Joining the department this semester were Kay B. Warren, 56, from Harvard University, and Catherine A. Lutz, 51, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Stephen D. Houston, 45, will arrive from Brigham Young University in July. "In the world of economics or some other discipline, hiring three senior people may not be all that unusual," says David I. Kertzer, the department's chairman. "But in anthropology, it's rare. And hiring people of this visibility is extremely rare." Ms. Warren is known for the wide variety of her work and is now studying the ways in which major international donors to Latin America think about the region. She was the founding director of the women's-studies program at Princeton University. Ms. Lutz, who is president of the American Ethnological Society, is studying U.S. military bases in Guam, South Korea, and Japan. Her 2001 book, Homefront: A Military City and the American Twentieth Century (Beacon Press), examined the interplay of military and civilian culture in Fayetteville, N.C. Ms. Warren and Ms. Lutz have joint appointments in anthropology and in Brown's Watson Institute for International Studies. Ms. Warren is the director of the institute's program in politics, culture, and identity. Mr. Houston is a prominent Mesoamerican archaeologist. His current projects include the excavation of the Mayan city of Kaminaljuyu, "which means, literally, the mounds of the dead," he says. The once-vast city, he says, has "mostly been destroyed by the growth of modern-day Guatemala City. But the royal palace there remains largely intact." -- David Glenn *** WHO GETS PAID? The latest standoff in what is now a notorious battle between the Board of Trustees at Rockland Community College and the State University of New York System has earned the trustees a censure from the Faculty Senate (The Chronicle, October 3). The senate was reacting to a move by the trustees' chairman, Charles D. Wasserman, who has vowed not to pay five faculty members who were reappointed last month by William J. Murabito, 58. SUNY's chancellor named Mr. Murabito officer in charge at the college last summer. The problem: Mr. Wasserman does not recognize that Mr. Murabito is in charge of anything, and thus considers his actions immaterial. Mr. Murabito took over when SUNY officials decided that the contract of Thomas G. Voss, 60, the interim president who cut the five faculty members, had expired. The college's board disagreed and vowed to keep their man, Mr. Voss, on the job. The board then filed a lawsuit against the state system to get a ruling on who runs the college -- the board or SUNY -- but the court has yet to issue an opinion. "We don't have a board comprised of rational human beings," says Richard Mossip, president of the senate. "Instead we have a circus." Meanwhile, the professors -- Allison Briker, Ian Blake Newman, Eli Rapaport, Martha Rottman, and Michael Will -- are in limbo. Some took adjunct positions at the college this semester, but all are hoping to return as full-time, paid professors in the spring term. Mr. Newman has been reporting to work since being reappointed in mid-November, but, along with the others, he has yet to receive a paycheck. "I'm hoping I will get paid eventually," says Mr. Newman, who taught English at the college until he was let go last spring. For his part, Mr. Wasserman says Mr. Murabito has not proved that the positions are needed. "I don't like to play with people's lives," he says. "But we're not a board that's going to rubber-stamp decisions either." Mr. Murabito maintains that the faculty members were originally terminated because of budget concerns that have since improved. Therefore, the faculty members should get their jobs back, he says. He sums up the standoff as "a difference of opinion." He's had a lot of those since taking the reins. "Every day is an adventure," he says. "But I'm very optimistic that rationality will return to this situation." -- Jamilah Evelyn http://chronicle.com Section: Short Subjects Volume 50, Issue 17, Page A7 |
Copyright © 2003 by The Chronicle of Higher Education