UNIVERSITY of PENNSYLVANIA Tuesday, April 27, 1999 Volume 45 Number 30 Bicentennial Class of ’40 and Class of ’42 Chairs: Dr. Filreis and Dr. Sugrue Provost Robert Barchi has announced the Humanities in 1988, and was promoted to tenure award of endowed term chairs to Dr. Alan Filreis in 1991 and to full professor in 1995. In 1993-96, of English and to Dr. Thomas Sugrue of History. as undergraduate chair of English, he led a They will hold prestigious alumni-funded chairs restructuring of the major that was widely praised that cut across school lines to recognize faculty by faculty and students alike, while also pio- who have made “significant contributions to neering the use of listservs to extend discussion scholarship and to undergraduate teaching.” outside the classroom. Becoming master of Van For their fiftieth reunions, both the Bicenten- Pelt College House in 1995 and chair of the nial Class of 1940 and the Class of 1942 en- Residential Faculty Council in 1996, he intro- dowed term chairs that provide each holder with Photo by Candace diCarlo duced programs using technology to provide $10,000 a year for five years in discretionary academic services to students around-the-clock research funds, which may be used for research in their dorms—a major amenity of the College assistance, travel or special equipment, extra House System as now structured. As he left the support for library acquisitions in the holder’s mastership of Van Pelt, Dr. Filreis embarked on field of specialization, and resources to support still another form of learning in action, as found- publication of research and writing. ing director of the Kelly Writers House, the first The two chairs rotate every five years among of Penn’s two “hubs” organized around a com- the four undergraduate schools. Since the chairs Alan Filreis Thomas Sugrue mon interest as a home base for residential and were last held by faculty in the School of Engi- nonresidential students, faculty and staff. (The neering and Applied Science, nominations were from Cambridge in 1986. He also earned an other is Civic House, organized around commu- requested this year from Wharton, Nursing and M.A. at Cambridge and an A.M. at Harvard, en nity service and led by Dr. Peter Conn.) SAS. A faculty committee chaired by Dr. John route to his Ph.D. there in 1992. In 1990-91, Dr. Filreis’s Wallace Stevens and the Actual Quinn of Engineering reviewed the nominations before joining Penn, he was a research fellow at World (Princeton 1991) and Modernism from and made their recommendations to the Provost. The Brookings Institution. Right to Left: Wallace Stevens, the Thirties & Dr. Alan Filreis, professor of English, was About Dr. Filreis: The new Class of 1940 Literary Radicalism (Cambridge 1994), will be awarded the Class of 1942 chair previously held Professor is an award-winning teacher (of the followed shortly by The Fifties’ Thirties: U.S. by Dr. Kyle Vanderlick. Lindback in 1992, the Ira Abrams in 1995, and, Poetry & Anticommunist Culture. Dr. Thomas Sugrue, associate professor of last year, the designation Pennsylvania Profes- history, takes the Bicentennial Class of 1940 sor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation/ Wharton Chair formerly held by Dr. Jan Van der Spiegel. CASE). He is also called “one of his generation’s About Dr. Sugrue: Nominated by Dean most important scholars and critics of American Teaching Samuel Preston as one who “has risen to an modernist poetry of the period from the 1920s important position in 20th century American through the Cold War,” in Dean Preston’s nomi- Awards...p. 8 historiography at an unusually early stage of his nation—which cites particularly his books on career while maintaining a deep commitment to Wallace Stevens that have overturned previous undergraduate teaching,” Dr. Sugrue came to scholarship to show Stevens to be deeply en- Penn as a lecturer in 1991 and joined the stand- gaged in the political issues of his time. Dean ing faculty the following year. Before and after Preston also says, “In his integration of brilliant his promotion to tenure in 1997, he gathered scholarship with unstinting devotion to teaching awards for teaching and scholarship. In 1996, he and educational reform, Professor Filreis is with- won the Outstanding Professor Award of Penn’s out peer.” Greek Council along with the Best Article Prize Dr. Filreis came to Penn in 1985, a 1978 Barbara Kahn of the Urban History Association and the alumnus of Colgate with his Ph.D. from the President’s Book Award of the Social Science University of Virginia. He was named the Esther Clockwise from above: History Association. In 1997, he shared the K. & N. Mark Watkins Assistant Professor in the Dr.Kahn and Dr. Hitt Sidney Hillman Foundation Award for a na- won Hauck Awards, tional teach-in with the labor movement and also Dr. Allen the Anvil, won the Philip Taft prize for Best Book in Labor IN THIS ISSUE and Dr. Tyson the Lorin Hitt Class of 1984 History. And last year, he won the History Un- 2 Council: Agenda for April 28 dergraduate Advisory Board Teaching Award Award plus others Senate: Nomination—Assistant Professor; (see pages 8-9). alongside a Bancroft Prize in American History. Report of the Committee on the Faculty The book that won prizes three years in a row is The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and 3 Proposed Handbook Revision: Copyright Inequality in Postwar Detroit (Princeton 1996). 4 Proposed Handbook Revision: His more recent work is as coeditor, with Dr. Tenure Probationary Period; Michael Katz, of W.E.B. DuBois, Race and the Alcohol Update; Retirement Seminars City: The Philadelphia Negro and Its Legacy 5 ISC: Changes in Modem Pool (Penn 1998), and he is now at work on Racial Grants Available: Humanities, Motility, Integration and Its Critics in Twentieth-Century Health of Minority Elders America, and is co-editor of a forthcoming spe- 6 Staff Changes; HONORS & Other Things cial issue of the Budapest Quarterly Review 8 Wharton School Teaching Awards called The Urban Crisis: Poverty and Inequality 10 Staff Appreciation Day and Other Bulletins in America. 11 CrimeStats; Update Dr. Sugrue took a B.A. from Columbia summa 12 On the Green and in the Hubs Franklin Allen cum laude in 1984, and another, with honours, Pullout: May at Penn William Tyson COUNCIL Agenda SENATE From the Senate Office University Council Meeting Wednesday, April 28, 1999, 4- 6 p.m. McClelland Hall, The Quadrangle Senate Committee on the Faculty (Observers please call 898-7005 to register.) Year-end Report, 1998-1999 I. Approval of minutes of March 24 1 minute April 16, 1999 II. Status Reports of the President, Provost, and The Senate Committee on the Faculty (CoF) considered the following issues in the academic year Chairs of Steering, GAPSA, UA, PPSA, and 1998-1999 as charged by the Chair of the Faculty Senate: A-3 Assembly. Reports and clarifications: 1. The Percent of Standing Faculty in the School of Medicine 20 minutes Represented by Clinician Educators III.Extended reports by the President, Provost, According to the Handbook for Faculty and Academic Administrators, the Clinician Educators and other administrators on budgets and plans (CEs) in the School of Medicine are limited to 40% of the Standing Faculty. Currently the CEs for the coming academic year 40 minutes represent approximately 59% of the Standing Faculty in the School of Medicine. The major part of presentations; 20 minutes discussion the 1998 sessions of the Committee on the Faculty (CoF) was dominated by deliberations on the IV.Preliminary discussion of issues to be dealt resolution of this discrepancy. A broad representation of Standing Faculty of the University were with in the coming academic year, as called interviewed or were part of the general discussions, including members from the School of for in the Council Bylaws 15 minutes Medicine, the School of Arts and Sciences, the School of Dental Medicine, the School of En- V. Council committee reports 3-minute gineering and Applied Science, the Graduate School of Fine Arts and the Graduate School of Ed- presentations with 5-minute discussions ucation. The history of the issue was studied and documents pertaining to this issue published in A. Communications Almanac were reviewed (April 6, 1976; April 19, 1977; May 1, 1979; April 12,1983). While the CoF B. International Programs was studying this matter, the Faculty of the School of Medicine organized a comprehensive review, C. Safety and Security called Faculty 2000, of issues that concern the faculty of that school, among which is the ratio of CEs VI.Adjournment by 6 p.m. to tenure track members. The CoF has not received a formal request from the School of Medicine through the Provost and SEC to modify the Handbook. Therefore, the CoF recommends that SEC reconsider the issue after the conclusions of Faculty 2000 are known and the Medical School submits SENATE From the Chair a formal proposal concerning the CE/tenure track ratio to the Provost. Nevertheless, the CoF reaffirmed that any recommendations on the resolution of this issue should not subvert or otherwise Under the faculty Senate rules, formal undermine the traditional principles and central importance of the system of tenure that is designed notification to members may be accomplished to protect the academic freedom of the Faculty. by publication in Almanac. The following is 2. Clinical Faculty in the Associated Faculty and Clinical Associates published under that rule. in the Academic Support Staff (Almanac April 13, 1999) TO: Members of the Faculty Senate The Interim Provost referred to the Faculty Senate a Medical School request for a change in the FROM: John C.