Twenty-six faculty members retire
Twenty-six faculty members were granted emeritus status by the Regents at their May meeting.
Those retiring are Sally L. Allen, professor of biology; Richard D. Duke, professor of urban planning; Joe G. Eisley, professor of aerospace engineering; Daniel N. Fader, professor of English; Irene Fast, professor of psychology;
Carl Gans, professor of zoology; Rosalie J. Ging, assistant professor of psychiatry; Assya K. Humesky, professor of Slavic languages and literatures; Joachim W. Janecke, professor of physics; Lawrence W. Jones, professor of physics;
Virginia C. Kane, associate professor of history of art; C. Philip Kearney, professor of education; John W. Kingdon, professor of political science; Ralph B. Lewis, professor of music (theory); Kenneth C. Ludema, professor of mechanical engineering;
Guy R. Mermier, professor of French; Arthur F. Messiter Jr., the Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Professor of Aerospace Engineering and professor of aerospace engineering; James R. O’Neil, professor of geological sciences; Kenneth J. Polakowski, professor of landscape architecture; M.S. Ramanujan, professor of mathematics;
Thomas B.A. Senior, professor of electrical engineering and computer science; Martin Sichel, professor of aerospace engineering; Barbara M. Sloat, assistant research scientist, Department of Biology;
John D. Stevens, professor of communication studies; Richard E. Tashian, professor of human genetics; and Louis V. Zuck, U-M-Dearborn professor of linguistics.
Allen, who joined the U-M in 1953, served as LS&A associate dean in 1988-91. “For most of her career, her research has focused on the genetics and evolution of the ciliated protozoa, an unusual group of organisms with a bizarre life cycle that have produced many fundamental insights into the functioning of all organisms,” the Regents said. “For many years, she has served as editor of Genetics, the field’s premier scientific journal.”
Duke, who joined the U-M in 1967, “has had an outstanding career as an educator. A pioneer in the field of gaming, he is internationally recognized for his contributions in the field of simulation and gaming, not only for his theoretical work, but also for the significant contributions he has made in making this approach to strategic planning known throughout the world. He has authored numerous games, books and articles on gaming and simulation.”
Eisley, who joined the U-M in 1956, “has done research in the areas of structural dynamics, flutter and computer graphics, and has published extensively in the area of nonlinear vibrations,” the Regents said. “He has been very effective in the teaching of structural mechanics and in converting academic ideas into industrial practice. He pioneered the use of energy methods in structural mechanics and guided the department’s program in structures in that direction. This has made the department a leader in the methods that have culminated in the broad use of the finite element method.”
Fader joined the U-M in 1961. “He was, above all, a great storyteller, and in his teaching (especially of Shakespeare) he drew students into the great narrative of English literature. As a scholar he was a storyteller too, and he brought to his work a persuasive and even compelling brilliance. He was in great demand as a lecturer and a commencement speaker. In 1976, he was named founding chair of the English Composition Board, a faculty body that oversees literacy efforts in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts.”
Fast first joined the U-M in 1958. “Within the department, she played a central, prolonged, and demanding role in formal courses and agency supervision in the diagnostic training of clinical psychologists. Also greatly valued was her assistance in the complicated transition years as the Counseling Center was transformed into the current University Center for the Child and Family. Her scholarly contributions have had a significant impact, beginning with her early work on bereavement and on step-parenting and her papers demonstrating the vital role of personality variables in vocational choice.”
Gans joined the U-M in 1971. “During his tenure as chair of the zoology department,” the Regents noted, “Prof. Gans participated in the merger of the Department Botany and Zoology into what became the present Department of Biology. His research specialty is functional morphology, the fusion of anatomy and physiology that aims to interpret biological structure in terms of its function. Within this specialty, he has concentrated on reptiles and amphibians, contributing importantly to such fundamental topics as breathing, eating and locomotion.”
Ging joined the U-M in 1957. “Dr. Ging was appointed as a staff psychiatrist at the Veteran’s Administration Medical Center in 1956. She served as chief of the psychiatry service at the Ann Arbor Veteran’s Administration Medical Center in 1960-84 and as acting chief in 1984-86. She was responsible for administering and coordinating clinical supervision and education of psychiatric residents and medical students. Her devoted loyalty as administrator, teacher, clinician and mentor has been recognized over the years.”
Humesky joined the U-M in 1953. “The book that resulted from her dissertation, Majakovsky and his Neologisms, is unique in that it lists all the instances of word coinage by the famous Russian poet. Prof. Humesky is also co-author of a widely acclaimed two-volume Russian grammar, Modern Russian, and the author of Modern Ukrainian, now in its sixth printing. The Russian grammar was the first to use the audio-lingual approach and the first to illustrate Russian intonation. The Ukrainian textbook is the most widely used introductory grammar of the language in the world.”
Janecke first joined the U-M in 1960. “In a distinguished research career, Prof. Janecke has conducted precision measurements of Coulomb energies in nuclei and other nuclear reaction measurements related to the isospin part of the nuclear force. He has served the U-M in many roles, including terms on the Rackham graduate school executive board, the Senate Assembly and on other Universitywide committees. He has served as chair or member of 29 dissertation committees. He was elected a fellow of the American Physical Society in 1972.”
Jones joined the U-M in 1952. “During his first decade at Michigan, he collaborated intensively in the Midwest Universities Research Association, an accelerator design and development group that pioneered the concept of colliding beams and other innovations now universal in modern accelerators. Prof. Jones’ detector contributions include development of the luminescent (scintillation) chamber, various optical spark chamber concepts, and the ionization calorimeter for hadron energy measurement. Recently, he has been part of a project to use lasers as compact electron accelerators for particle physics.”
Kane joined the U-M in 1969. “Throughout her career at the University, she has been a devoted teacher of Asian art and Buddhist studies. Although her specialized research has focused on Chinese bronzes, her range in the classroom has been extraordinary–moving across temporal and cultural expanses in China, Japan and Southeast Asia, tracing the story and meanings of international Buddhism through the artistic record. A deeply learned scholar and a demanding instructor, her seminars are widely acknowledged by multiple generations of graduate students in the Department of History of Art as a superb training ground in research methodology and pedagogy.”
Kearney, who joined the U-M in 1980, “has served in a variety of roles within the School of Education. He was chair of the Program in Educational Administration and Supervision; chair of the Division of Educational Foundations, Policy and Administration; associate dean; and director of the Bureau of Accreditation and School Improvement Studies. He has taught graduate courses in school finance, educational policy and educational administration, and has been very successful in mentoring students and collaborating with them on research and publications.”
Kingdon joined the U-M in 1965 and chaired the Department of Political Science in 1982-87 and 1989-90. “He made major contributions to the study of American politics,” the Regents said. “His initial work was a study of candidates in congressional elections. This project was followed by a seminal book on congressional decision-making, which has been reissued in several editions. His third book concerned the behavior of interest groups in setting political agendas. This work is still cited regularly, and in 1994 it received a prize as the most influential book written in the field of public policy in the preceding decade.”
Lewis joined the U-M in 1965 as lecturer in music and assistant to the dean at the Rackham School of Graduate Studies. He was promoted to associate dean in 1968 and served in this capacity until 1977. “Within the Graduate School, he played a significant role in establishment of the Society of Fellows, the Professional Journalist Fellowship Program and the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies. In the School of Music, he served as chair of the Department of Music Theory (1979-94) and as director of the Division of Composition, Music History and Music Theory (1988-93).”
Ludema, who joined the U-M in 1962, “carried out research and published numerous papers on the friction and wear behavior of all classes of materials (polymers, metals and ceramics) in many practical applications. His emphasis was on nontraditional topics at the intersection of various disciplines that study friction, lubrication and wear, including dry and lubricated materials; wear modeling; scuffing of lubricated machinery; and dynamics of film growth on sliding surfaces.”
Mermier first joined the U-M in 1961. “An internationally acknowledged specialist in Medieval French and Provencal literature, his publications include many editions and translations of major Old French text as well as more than 40 articles on French and medieval literature. He directed the Michigan-Wisconsin academic year program in Aix-en-Provence three times. In 1980-97, he directed the University’s Medieval and Renaissance Collegium. He chaired or co-chaired 14 doctoral dissertation committees and was a member of many more.”
Messiter joined the U-M in 1962. “His professional interests have included aerodynamics, fluid mechanics and helicopter theory. He has an international reputation for basic research and is best known as an independent co-developer of what is now referred to as ‘triple deck theory.’ This work paved the way for an enormous amount of research on the fundamental structure of strong interactions in flow fields. One of the most popular teachers in the department, Prof. Messiter brought to the classroom the same respect for fundamental understanding found in his research and combined it with an exceptional flair for exposition.”
O’Neil joined the U-M in 1988 and “his early work served to quantify the relationships between the stable isotopes of lighter elements such as hydrogen and oxygen and the earth’s physical environment. In a series of classic papers published in the late 1960s and early 1970s, he defined and quantified the systematic isotope geochemistry of deep crustal rocks, surficial rocks, atmosphere and oceans, and moon rocks. These papers have formed the standard starting points for much of the research in isotope geochemistry worldwide for the last 25 years.”
Polakowski joined the U-M in 1968. “Within the School of Natural Resources and Environment, he led a pioneering effort to develop the first professional master’s degree program in landscape architecture. He helped make the Michigan curriculum model the current and dominant international educational approach in this field. His teaching employed an ecological and behavioral approach to public land use planning and design. His research and professional practice have focused on the planning, design, development and management of significant and endangered ecosystems.”
Ramanujan joined the U-M in 1959. “His research has been in the area of locally convex topological vector spaces, and, more specifically, in the subarea of nuclear spaces. He has always been one of the most responsible and diligent members of the mathematics department. He has been devoted to excellent teaching of undergraduate and graduate students on all levels. He has been most loved by his students and has consistently received top numbers on his student evaluations. He has always been thought of as one of the department’s best teachers.”
Senior, who joined the U-M in 1957, “has made fundamental contributions to our knowledge of electromagnetic and acoustic scattering and of analytic and numerical techniques for low, resonant and high frequencies; his work on edge scattering is internationally recognized. Within the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, he served as associate director and director of the Radiation Laboratory. The laboratory became internationally recognized, particularly for its work on radar scattering. He served as associate chair of the department in 1985-90 and acting chair in 1987-88. Since 1991, he has been associate chair for academic affairs.”
Sichel joined the U-M in 1961. “His scholarly research has made him a world leader in the area of explosions, detonations and heterogeneous combustion science. His broad professional interests have led to a wide range of prestigious journal articles, numerous invited seminars, and a leadership role in the international research community. He served on the executive committee of the College of Engineering in 1974-78, was the interim chair of the Department of Aerospace Engineering in 1996, and for many years was the graduate program adviser.”
Sloat, who joined the U-M in 1967, “gained a substantial reputation in the field of cell biology for her published research on lysosomal acid phosphatase and on cellular morphogenesis in yeast. Dr. Sloat developed a strong career in the area of gender and science and has done research on the factors inhibiting the entry and retention of women in scientific fields. In 1980-84, she served as the founding director of the Women in Science Program, which she had developed under the auspices of the Center for the Education of Women.”
Stevens joined the U-M in 1967 and served as chair of the Department of Communication in 1984-87. “His primary research interests were in media history and First Amendment issues of the press. He was the author or co-author of six books in these areas and also authored numerous journal articles and reviews. He served on the editorial board of several journalism and mass communication journals, including Journalism History, up to his retirement.”
Tashian, who joined the U-M in 1957, is “an international expert on molecular evolution and the world’s leading authority on the structure, function, genetics and evolution of the carbonic anhydrase gene family. In 1962, he discovered a rare genetic variant of carbonic anhydrase and, in 1966, he described perhaps the first amino acid substitution in a human enzyme, CA I Guam. Over the next three decades, Prof. Tashian applied a series of progressively more sophisticated new technologies, including protein chemistry and sequencing, molecular biology and gene cloning, and, most recently gene inactivation to explore the structure-function relationships, genetic and evolutionary relationships, and the biology of the carbonic anhydrases.”
Zuck joined the Dearborn faculty in 1966 and was “instrumental in the development of linguistics program at the Dearborn campus. He has developed and taught a wide range of linguistics courses, including ‘Language, Thought and Culture,’ ‘Social Dialects of American English’ and ‘Discourse Analysis.’ He also has taught courses in Medieval English literature. Through the years, Prof. Zuck’s students have praised his depth of knowledge, his thorough explanations and his willingness to work with them outside of class.”
