The summer of 1999 represented an important moment in the history of Indiana University’s efforts towards diversifying its faculty ranks. Part of these undertakings involved a restructuring of administrative offices, which included the creation of our Office of Strategic Hiring and Support (SH&S). As of July first of 1999, both the Minority Faculty Fellowship Program (MFFP) and the Program for the Recruitment and Retention of Minorities and Senior Women were given a prominent place within this larger administrative frame. Alberto Torchinsky, director of these two programs, as well as professor for the Department of Mathematics and former Dean of Latino Affairs, was appointed as Associate Vice Chancellor of the newly created office under Charlie Nelms, Vice Chancellor of Academic Support and Diversity, and Vice President of Student Development and Diversity.
All of us at SH&S are very excited by the university’s commitment to our ongoing efforts towards bringing more faculty of color, as well as senior women, to IUB; we are particularly gratified to observe the continuing enthusiastic participation in MFFP by various schools and departments across the Bloomington campus. This year, many fellows were invited to departments that haven’t participated in MFFP for some time. We were fortunate to have had so many talented and intelligent fellows again, but from an even wider range of disciplines, and to see departmentally sponsored talks given by four fellows. We hope that in future both departments and fellows will work together on such presentations as they benefit the scholar’s growth and the summer academic community, by exposing it to important new research.
The fourteenth year of MFFP saw ten fellows come to IU, two for first summer session appointments, and eight for appointments held during second summer session. We were also pleased to sponsor Tiffany Flowers, who was invited by Educational Leadership and Policy Studies exclusively to assist Professor Martha McCarthy in her research in that field.
The School of Education’s Educational Leadership and Policy Studies invited three other scholars: Dr. Lamont Flowers came to IU on a research appointment to work on the National Survey of Student Engagement; Dr. Sharon Holmes was brought to conduct a graduate seminar on higher education issues; Dr. Michelle Scott was also given the opportunity to teach at the graduate-level.
Our remaining fellows were appointed through the College of Arts and Sciences to teach undergraduate courses.Estevan Azcona came to IU to teach during second summer session for the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology. The Department of English invited both Thabiti Lewis and Dr. Francis Ngaboh-Smart to teach in this session as well.
Our other COAS fellows gave talks made available to the public. During first summer session, Latino Studies fellow Dr. Jerry Garcia presented “Memory, Community, and Activism: the History of a Washington State Mexican Community,” and Dr. Emmet G. Price III, appointed in Afro-American Studies, discussed his paper, “Beyond the Music: Free Jazz, Politics, and the 1960s.” Towards second summer session’s end Davarian Baldwin presented “‘Chicago has No Intelligentsia’ (?): Harlem, Bronzeville and the ‘New Negro’ Reconsidered,” and Larry Valero talked about “The Mexican American Soldier”; both of these latter fellows were appointed in the Department of History.
For detailed information about our summer 2000 scholars, see individual interviews inside!
We are pleased to announce that two former MFFP participants have been offered faculty appointments at IUB. Year-long MFFP fellow Dr. Audrey Wilson has taken a tenure track appointment in the School of Journalism. The School of Public and Environmental Affairs has hired post-doctorally appointed Dr. Michael Edwards to join its faculty. We wish them both good luck in their new posts!