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New dean, renewed dean

Janel Mueller, the William Rainey Harper professor in English language & literature, will succeed Philip Gossett as dean of the Division of the Humanities. Richard Saller, the Edward L. Ryerson distinguished service professor in history, has been appointed to a second five-year term as dean of the Division of the Social Sciences.

A gaggle of Guggenheims

Seven University faculty have received 1999 Guggenheim fellowships: Neil Harris, historian; Robert Hooper, visiting lecturer in art; David Jablonski, geophysical sciences professor; Ketan Mulmuley, computer scientist; Robert Nelson, art historian; Bruce Winstein, physicist; and Wu Hung, art historian.

Medical milestone

The American Gastroenterological Association has honored Joseph B. Kirsner, PhD’42, the Louis Block distinguished service professor in medicine, with its distinguished educator award, recognizing Kirsner’s achievements during six decades of teaching. The award was one of only two major honors in his field that the 89-year-old Kirsner had not yet received. The other honor—for which he is not eligible—is the Joseph B. Kirsner Award from the American Digestive Health Foundation.

Historic collaboration

With a $145,000 award from the Library of Congress/Ameritech National Digital Library competition, the Regenstein Library will work with the Filson Club Historical Society in Louisville, KY, to create a virtual library: “The First American West: The Ohio River Valley, 1750–1820,” a collection of maps, manuscripts, letters, and books about the region.

A Pulitzer for poetry

Poet Mark Strand, professor in the Committee on Social Thought, won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for poetry for the collection Blizzard of One (Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), his ninth book of poetry.

Celebrated books

Martin Marty, PhD’56, the Fairfax M. Cone distinguished service professor emeritus in the Divinity School, received the U of C Press’s 1999 Gordon J. Laing Award, recognizing the faculty author, editor, or translator whose work has brought the greatest distinction to the Press. Marty was recognized as author of Modern American Religion, a four-volume chronicle of 20th-century American religion and faith. The fourth volume is in progress.

The smell of success

Martha McClintock has been named the David Lee Shillinglaw distinguished service professor in psychology. McClintock studies the relationships among mind, behavior, and the functioning of the neural and endocrine systems.

Saluting new Americans

Ron Huberman, a Chicago police officer and dual master’s degree graduate student in the School of Social Service Administration and the Graduate School of Business, was awarded a 1999 Paul and Daisy Soros fellowship for new Americans. Huberman, born in Tel Aviv, Israel, became an American citizen in 1982.

Searching the heavens

Physics Nobel laureate James Cronin, SM’53, PhD’55, and University of Leeds researcher Alan Watson are leading 250 scientists from 19 nations in a project to locate the source of rare, powerful high-energy cosmic rays. They’ll use the Pierre Auger Observatory’s site in Argentina, now under construction, and its second site, planned for Utah.

Academic all-stars

Five University faculty members—historian Bruce Cumings; psychologist Martha McClintock; Romance languages & literatures professor Thomas Pavel; medicine and molecular genetics & cell biology professor Craig Thompson; and ecology & evolution professor Wen-Hsiung Li—were elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Economics professor Lars Peter Hansen was selected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences.


Top teachers

Five professors received 1999 Quantrell Awards for excellence in undergraduate teaching: psychologist Bertram Cohler, AB’61; Milton Ehre, professor in Slavic languages & literatures; geophysical scientist Susan Kidwell; Michael LaBarbera, professor in organismal biology & anatomy and geophysical sciences; and historian Moishe Postone, SB’63, AM’67.

Broken records

This year, U of C graduate students broke last year’s record number of Fulbright-Hays doctoral-dissertation research abroad fellowships by garnering 19 of the 75 awards distributed nationwide for the 1999–2000 academic year. It was the 13th year that Chicago students have received the largest number of fellowships in the competition.

Centenarian Phi Beta Kappa

The University’s chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Society celebrated its 100th anniversary this spring. Chicago’s first Phi Beta Kappa executive committee included William Rainey Harper and Harry Pratt Judson.

Combating cancer

Janis Burkhardt, assistant professor in pathology, received a $278,600 grant from the National Institutes of Health to study how lymphocytes, a type of traveling immune cell, aim toxin granules at cancer cells.

Service from the senator

The University conferred its William Benton Medal of distinguished public service on Paul Simon, former senator from Illinois, this spring. The award honors individuals whose public service improves the field of education.

Star journalism

The American Astronomical Society’s high-energy astrophysics division has named its new prize for science journalism after late U of C physicist David Schramm, regarded as the founder of the field of particle astrophysics.

Smart Museum renovation

The University’s Smart Museum of Art closed April 19 for an extensive renovation of the museum and a reinstallation of the permanent collection. The $2-million project will provide an education study room; more spacious special exhibition galleries; more extensive displays of modern, contemporary, and Asian collections; and a thematic presentation of rotating selections from the collections of antiquities and Old Master works.

Honored with degrees

Historian Pierre Briant received an honorary doctor of humane letters degree at the second session of the 456th convocation, as did philosopher Bernard Williams, while physicist Daniel Tsui, SM’63, PhD’67, a 1998 Nobel laureate, received an honorary doctor of science degree.

Recognizing promise

Three U of C mathematics professors and one economics professor received 1999 Alfred P. Sloan research fellowships. Steven Levitt, associate professor in economics, and Benson Farb, Matthias Schwarz, and Shankar Venkataramani, assistant professors in mathematics, were recognized for their work’s intellectual promise.

Medical moves

In July, cancer specialist and professor of medicine Richard L. Schilsky, MD’75, became associate dean for clinical research in the Division of the Biological Sciences. Nicholas J. Vogelzang has been named the first Fred C. Buffett professor of medicine and director of the University of Chicago Cancer Research Center.

Different direction

Bill Michel, AB’92, who was director of the Reynolds Club and oversaw its recent renovation, has been appointed Deputy Dean of Student Services for Sevelopment and Student Sctivities and Assistant Dean of the College.

Critical acclaim

Emeritus music professor Charles Rosen has received the world’s largest annual cash prize for literary criticism, the Truman Capote award. The award, administered by the U of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, recognized Rosen for his work Romantic Poets, Critics, and Other Madmen.
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