The University Record, August 16 , 1999 Editor’s Note: The following actions were taken by the Regents at their July meeting. Other actions were reported in the July 19 Record.
Appointments to professorships approved
Nancy E. Burns, associate professor of political science, will hold the Henry Simmons Frieze Collegiate Professorship, effective Sept. 1.
Rebecca S. Eisenberg, professor of law, will hold the Robert and Barbara Luciano Professorship of Law, effective Sept. 1.
Susan Gelman, professor of psychology, will hold the Frederick G.L. Huetwell Professorship, effective Sept. 1.
Gary D. Glick, professor of chemistry, will hold the Werner E. Bachman Collegiate Professorship of Chemistry, effective Sept. 1.
Fiona Lee, assistant professor of business administration and assistant professor of psychology, will hold the Sanford R. Robertson Assistant Professorship of Business Administration, effective Sept. 1.
William G. Mitchell, professor of corporate strategy and international business, will hold the Jack D. Sparks-Whirlpool Corporation Research Professorship of Business Administration, effective Sept. 1.
Carl E. Schneider, professor of law and of internal medicine, will hold the Chauncey Stillman Professorship for Ethics, Morality, and the Practice of Law, effective Sept. 1.
Frederick B. Talbot, professor of operations management, will hold the Keith E. and Valerie J. Alessi Professorship of Business Administration, effective Sept. 1.
James P. Walsh, professor of organizational behavior and of human resource management and corporate strategy, will hold the Gerald and Esther Carey Professorship of Business Administration, effective Sept. 1.
Burns has “published widely in the fields of urban politics, political participation, and gender and politics,” said Patricia Y. Gurin, LS&A interim dean. “Her book, The Formation of American Local Governments: Private Values in Public Institutions, was published by Oxford University Press in 1994. She is currently completing a second book on the role of social institutions, such as work places and non-political organizations, in fostering and limiting women and men’s political involvement. Prof. Burns has earned the respect of her colleagues as well as her students.”
Eisenberg is “a superb interdisciplinary scholar and teacher,” said Jeffrey S. Lehman, dean of the Law School. “At Michigan she has taught courses in torts, and on a variety of topics pertaining to the legal protection of intellectual property, with particular emphasis on the subjects of technology transfer and of the impact of granting patent rights with respect to the human genome. She has published extensively in law reviews and in scientific publications and she has presented the results of that research at workshops around the world. She has served as a member of several different working groups and committees for the National Institutes of Health.”
Gelman is “an internationally acclaimed developmental psychologist whose work focuses on the ways children organize their knowledge and experiences, and particularly on the role that language plays in the process or organization,” Gurin said. “Gelman has been recognized as one of the nation’s most promising developmental psychologists. Her promise has been realized in an extraordinary scholarly record, one that continues to be validated by a variety of awards. Among her numerous publications are two book chapters commissioned from the very best researchers in the field.”
Glick is “widely regarded as a major figure and leader in the area of chemical biology,” said Gurin. “He has uniquely combined research expertise in organic chemistry and structural biochemistry, which enables him to solve important problems in medicine and biological systems. An effective and dynamic teacher, Prof. Glick has contributed a great deal to the development of a new curriculum in chemical biology at the graduate level. His scholarly contributions have been recognized by a number of prestigious awards. He possesses a keen intellect and outstanding command of chemistry coupled with originality and insight.”
Lee is “one of our most promising junior scholars, who is working in the areas of learning in organization and group dynamics and development,” said B. Joseph White, dean of the School of Business Administration. “She has an impressive list of works in progress and publications in top quality journals. She is a frequent presenter at national professional conferences. She is an excellent teacher in both the Business School and the Department of Psychology. And she has already served on three dissertation committees since joining the U-M faculty. Finally, she serves as a reviewer on several of her profession’s top journals.”
Mitchell is “an accomplished researcher working in the area of business growth and survival in technology-intensive industries, emphasizing inter-firm linkages,” White said.
“He has an extensive list of refereed publications in some of the most prestigious journals in his field. He was one of the key influences in the School reviewing and renovating our computing services area. His leadership of the Information Resources Committee led to improved computing services to faculty, staff and students, upgrading classrooms to provide the latest video technology, and beginning a process of long-range strategic planning for future technology in the School.”
Schneider is “a superb interdisciplinary scholar and teacher,” Lehman said. “At Michigan he has taught courses in family law, and on a variety of topics pertaining to the relationship among law, medicine and bioethics, and he has lectured on those subjects in Japan, Germany and England. He has published extensively, in law reviews and in the Hastings Center Report. His recent book, The Practice of Autonomy: Patients, Doctors, and Decisions, has received critical acclaim. His current research on the relationship between professional education and the pursuit of a moral life holds enormous promise.”
Talbot is “an excellent teacher, receiving consistently high ratings from students and remaining one of the key faculty leaders in our Executive Education programs,” White said. “His professional contributions to the field of manufacturing education and research have been outstanding. While moving toward an administrative focus over the past several years, he has maintained his strong academic presence. In addition to consulting with major manufacturing firms such as General Electric, Steelcase, Westinghouse and Coca-Cola, he has maintained a strong record of publishing and presenting his work.”
Walsh is “an excellent researcher and teacher,” according to White. “Working in the areas of corporate governance in transitional economies and the relationship between internal corporate practices and equity reorganizations, he publishes frequently in his profession’s top tier journals. He also is an excellent teacher in both undergraduate and graduate degree programs, where his ratings fall consistently above departmental average, and in our Executive Education programs. Walsh is extremely active in service to both the School and to his profession.”
Four faculty members given emeritus status
Those retiring are David A. Daly, associate professor of education; Max A. Heirich, professor of sociology and research scientist in the Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations; Wilfred G. Marston, professor of sociology at the U-M-Flint; and David N. Williams, professor of physics.
Daly, who joined the faculty in 1973, is “an international expert in cluttering and stuttering, and he has had considerable impact on how clinicians deal with such fluency disorders through his numerous presentations and publications,” the Regents said. “Through his service as an officer and member of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and the Michigan Speech-Language-Hearing Association, Prof. Daly’s influence has extended nationwide. He also shared his expertise through workshops and seminars offered through school districts and professional organizations.”
Heirich, who joined the faculty in 1967, “has made significant scholarly contributions to the sociological study of social movements, religion, and health,” the Regents said. “Two early books (1970 and 1971) analyzed ‘the spiral’ of student protests in the 1960s and remain among the most influential works on this topic. His 1977 article on religious conversion has become a citation classic among scholars of religion. More recently, he has directed his scholarly efforts toward more applied research and policy evaluation focusing on health and wellness.”
Marston joined the U-M-Flint faculty in 1970 as associate professor and the first chair of the
Department of Sociology/Anthropology. “He was promoted to professor in 1974 and served as chair until 1976, as well as several other times in the 1980s and 1990s. He was instrumental in the formation of the department’s social work and criminal justice programs during his tenure as chair. His research and writing focused primarily on race, ethnic, and class segregation in the United States and Canadian urban communities.”
Williams joined the faculty in 1967. “His research interests have generally been in quantum field theory, with a mathematical physics orientation. In the earlier part of his career, he did important work on invariant scattering amplitudes free of kinematic singularities. He was a major author of the proof of Stapp’s Theorem on Lorentz covariant holomorphic functions. Later, he published work on the mathematical theory of unstable particles and Euclidean quantum field theory. In recent years, he has been interested in the triviality problem for quantum field theory.”
Dearborn’s Bolkosky appointed to Stirton Professorship
Sidney Bolkosky, professor of history at U-M-Dearborn, was appointed to the William E. Stirton Professorship for a five-year term starting Sept. 1.
Bolkosky directs Dearborn’s Honors Program and has received the University’s Distinguished Faculty Awards for teaching and research.
As director of Voice Vision, Dearborn’s oral history project on the Holocaust, Bolkosky has interviewed more than 145 Holocaust survivors. His books include Life Unworthy of Life: A Holocaust Curriculum and most recently Harmony and Dissonance: Voices of Jewish Identity in Detroit, 1914–1967.
