The Board of Trustees recently appointed three Dartmouth professors to endowed professorships, giving them more money to apply to their research.
On July 1, French Professor Marianne Hirsch became the Parents Distinguished Research Professor in the Humanities, Physics Professor Mary Hudson became the Robert E. Maxwell 1923 Professor in the Arts and Sciences and William Scott became the Dartmouth Professor of Classics. The Board of Trustees approved the positions in June.
Marianne Hirsch
In Hirsh's 20 years at the College she has published two books &emdash; "Beyond the Single Vision: Henry James, Michel Butor, Uwe Johnson" in 1981 and "The Mother/Daughter Plot: Narrative, Psychoanalysis, and Feminism" in 1989, according to a press release.
Hirsh has also researched feminist issues &emdash; in 1991 she co-edited "Conflicts in Feminism," a collection of essays.
The Parents Distinguished Research Professorship in the Humanities was established in 1987 and is a five-year appointment. It was last held by Scott.
It is designated for "a member of the humanities faculty in order to promote creativity and research and to provide to the selected individual opportunities which would assist in his or her research," according to the College News Service.
Hirsch is currently working on a third book, "Family Frames: Narrative and Photography in the Postmodern."
She received her B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Brown University in comparative literature. She taught at Vanderbilt University and the National Humanities Center.
Mary Hudson
Mary Hudson received her B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physics from the University of California at Los Angeles. She has been a member of the Dartmouth faculty since 1984.
"She is among Dartmouth's most distinguished and productive scientists," Dean of the Faculty James Wright said in an interview with the Vox, a College publication.
Before coming to the College, Hudson held positions at The Aerospace Corporation in El Segundo, Calif. and at the University of California at Berkeley.
Hudson is currently a principal investigator in NASA's International Solar Terrestrial Program.
"I am working on the effects of solar flares and on the Earth's radiation belts and geomagnetic activity such as the Northern Lights," Hudson said in an electronic mail message from Berkeley, Calif.
"I am thrilled at the appointment and hope that the visibility will encourage more students, particularly women, to pursue careers in the sciences," she said.
Robert Maxwell '23 established the professorship Hudson was named to in 1980. The only previous holder was English Professor Blanche Gelfant who retired in 1993.
William Scott
Scott, who received his A.B., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Princeton University, has been a faculty member since 1966.
Scott said he felt receiving the professorship was a "real honor" and that it will allow him to travel to museums to look at artifacts for a book he is working on.
His work in the classics includes "The Oral Nature of the Homeric Simile" (1974), "Prometheus Bound" (1980) and "Musical Design in Aeschylean Theater" (1984). Scott has also been chairing the task force which is planning the new Berry Library.
Scott "is an important scholar in classical Greek literature and poetry, and is recognized as a significant authority on Greek theater," Wright told the Vox.
Scott recently worked on a New York production of Euripides' "Bacchae." He has been awarded grants from Dartmouth and the Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation.
Scott received the Goodwin Award of merit from the American Philological Association. The award goes to the years best book in classical studies.
The Dartmouth Professorship that Scott was appointed to is an endowed chair that is funded by part of a larger gift during the College's Will to Excel capital campaign. The donor or donors remain anonymous.
