The University Record, May 8, 1995
20 women faculty receive Career Development Awards of $5,000
By Jared Blank
The Office of the Provost recently awarded funding to 20 female faculty members through the University’s Career Development Fund. This is the second group of faculty to receive the award, which was created to respond to the “disproportionate service responsibilities” undertaken by female faculty members.
The Fund awards $5,000 discretionary stipends with no time limit on expenditure. Funds can be used for any purchases relating to scholarship, research or creativity. Up to 20 recipients are selected each term, based on their achievement, potential and service record, defined as any professionally related activities that draw the applicant away from her scholarly or creative agenda.
Although two sets of awards were given out this year, Associate Provost Susan Lipschutz suggests that the process for applying for the award may change.
“Because the academic community has had a year to implement the Career Development Fund, we are thinking of only having one competition each year, in the fall. This would save faculty time because review panels would meet less frequently,” Lipschutz says. She asks that faculty send their comments to her at [email protected].
Applicants gave a wide array of reasons for applying for the award. Wrote one: “It is especially hard to say no to service activities when you are trying to show that you can do the job just like any man, when the rules are unclear to you and you think such participation is required or expected, when you are motivated (and raised) to do what is right in terms of improving the place where you work, or when, quite simply, the fact of being asked to do something is one of the only flattering bits of encouragement you can find in your professional life.”
Another applicant wrote, “This term, perhaps more than others, much of my non-classroom and non-research time is consumed by the formal and informal advising of doctoral dissertations and preparation of preliminary examination fields with graduate students … As is true for many of us junior faculty whose work and interests are interdisciplinary in nature, my graduate courses are usually well over the limit of 12 (both of my recent graduate courses have had between 18 and 23 graduate students), which explains in part how I have become involved in the prelim. or dissertation committees of so many students… The number of hours I spend meeting with students before and after office hours, in cafes after office hours and on weekends is enormous.”
This term’s winners are:
Barbara Adams, assistant professor of pediatrics/rheumatology; Mary L. Brake, associate professor of nuclear engineering; Elsa Brown, assistant professor of history and of Afroamerican and African studies; Leone Buyse, professor of music; Kathleen Canning, assistant professor of history; Laura Downs, associate professor of history; Julie Ellison, professor and graduate chair of English;
Donna Erickson, assistant professor of natural resources; Linda Groat, associate professor of architecture; Sally Haslanger, associate professor of philosophy and of women’s studies; Sharon Herbert, professor of classical studies; Kimberlee J. Kearfott, professor of nuclear engineering; Miriam King, assistant professor of sociology and assistant research scientist, Population Studies Center;
Rosina Lippi-Green, associate professor of Germanic languages and literatures; Laurie McCauley, assistant professor of dentistry; Annemarie Palincsar, professor of educational studies; JoEllen Shively, assistant professor of sociology; Pat Simons, associate professor of history of art and of women’s studies; Joanne Smith, associate professor of music; and Brenda L. Volling, assistant professor of psychology.
