Institute for Advanced Study Hires First Black Member to Its Permanent Faculty; Shulman to Leave Carnegie Foundation; a Computer Scientist Leaves Princeton for Ga. Tech

advertisement

Article tools

Printer friendly	E-mail article	Subscribe	Order reprints
	Discuss any Chronicle article in our forums

Three most recent discussions

Re: Students, Grades, and Disappearing Today at 10:07:38 AM by anon99 Question for Tech Geeks Today at 10:07:10 AM by prytania3 Re: Early predictions for AI survivors this week! Today at 10:06:43 AM by princecopperlocks

By JOSH FISCHMAN and SIERRA MILLMAN

HISTORIC FIRST: Danielle S. Allen, dean of humanities and a professor of classical languages and literature at the University of Chicago, will be the first African-American to join the permanent faculty of the Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton, N.J.

"The chance to focus on my own work was one I couldn't pass up," Ms. Allen says, adding that she will continue to advise dissertation students at the University of Chicago. Ms. Allen, 35, holds two doctoral degrees, earned tenure at the age of 28, and won the MacArthur Foundation "genius award" at 30.

While the institution had to wait a few months for Ms. Allen to say she might be interested in an offer, she accepted within 36 hours when they made one, she says. "I'm glad that there are a number of women on the faculty, and I hope that the number of women will continue to increase," she says. Of the 27 permanent faculty members, Ms. Allen will be one of four women.

Her appointment to the institution is "huge," says Joan W. Scott, a professor of social science.

Ms. Allen's predecessor, Michael Walzer, is retiring in July.

***

PLANNED EXIT: Lee S. Shulman, president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, will retire in August 2008. He had always planned to leave after 10 or 12 years, he said in a written statement.

"The fact that the first foundation is in great shape and I will be nearing my 70th birthday a year from this summer," Mr. Shulman said, "helped me to conclude that 2008 was the right year to make way for new leadership" at the Carnegie Foundation.

Trained as an educator, Mr. Shulman made the "scholarship of teaching and learning" far more important than it used to be, both at the higher-education and at the elementary and secondary levels, says David S. Tatel, chairman of the organization's Board of Trustees and a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. "It's a field that Lee Shulman has virtually re-created," he says.

The search for his replacement will begin in mid-May, Mr. Tatel says.

***

TRADING UP: Leaving the Ivy League for "Hotlanta," Wayne H. Wolf, a computer scientist at Princeton University, will head south to the Georgia Institute of Technology in July.

"Georgia Tech has a critical mass of people in computer engineering," explains Mr. Wolf, noting that his department there will be about as big as the entire engineering school at Princeton. "It presents a lot more opportunities to work with people on big projects."

Mr. Wolf's work focuses on embedded computingchips in cars, houses, and elsewhere that help users control their environmentsas well as "smart cameras" for surveillance. Mr. Wolf, who has been at Princeton since 1989, says he's not worried about the Georgia heat: "That's why air-conditioning was invented."