Three Hamilton faculty members have been appointed to named professorships, effective July 1. Professor of Chinese Hong Gang Jin has been appointed The William R. Kenan Professor; Associate Professor of Philosophy Marianne Janack was named The Sidney Wertimer Professor; and Professor of History Maurice Isserman has been appointed The James L. Ferguson Professor.
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| Hing Gang Jin |
Jin came to Hamilton in 1989 after she received her master's and Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She started the Chinese Program at Hamilton in 1989, and in 1996 she helped establish the Associated Colleges in China program, a rigorous study abroad consortium in Beijing. Recently her research focus has been on classroom process and its effect on language acquisition, resulting in four articles published in 2004-2006 in Journal of Chinese Language Teachers Association and other edited books. Jin is also interested in language pedagogy. She is the lead author of three sets of textbooks. A two-volume textbook series, Crossing Paths: Living and Learning in China and Shifting Tides: Culture in Contemporary China (both with DeBao Xu), was published in February, 2003. Jin is on the board of directors of Chinese Language Teachers Association (CLTA) and was president in 2004-2005. In 2006 she was elected vice president of National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages.
The William R. Kenan Professor is a three-year appointment "to support and encourage a scholar-teacher whose enthusiasm for learning will broaden the learning process and make an effective contribution to the undergraduate community."
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| Marianne Janack |
Janack received her Ph.D. from Syracuse University, and before coming to Hamilton she was a fellow at the Pembroke Center at Brown University. She teaches classes in philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, feminist philosophy, and logic. Her most recent articles include "Dilemmas of Objectivity" (Social Epistemology) and "Changing the Subject of Epistemology and Psychology: William James's Psychology without Borders" (Metaphilosophy). She is currently working on a book on experience and rationality and on a volume on Richard Rorty for the Penn State University Press series Re-reading the Canon. Janack in 2004 won the College's Hatch Award for Excellence in Teaching and the Richardson Award for Innovation in Teaching.
The Sidney Wertimer Professorship,a five-year appointment, honors "a professor who exhibits special concern for advising students beyond the usual categories of teaching and scholarship."
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| Maurice Isserman |
Maurice Isserman received his Ph.D. from the University of Rochester, and is an expert on 20th-century U.S. history, particularly the 1960s. An expert on reform and radical movements Isserman is widely acknowledged to be the preeminent historian of the American left. A former Fulbright grant-winner, he is co-author of America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s. His book,
The Other American: The Life of Michael Harrington, has been named to countless non-fiction "must-read" lists. Facts on File published newly revised editions of his books,
World War Two, The Korean War, and
The Vietnam War, in 2003. In 2002, Isserman was on academic exchange with Pembroke College and Oxford University. His book on the history of Himalayan mountaineering will be published later in 2007 by Yale University Press, and he recently published an article in the
Chronicle of Higher Education on changes in mountaineering ethics in the late 20th century.
The James L. Ferguson Professor honors the Hamilton faculty's "involvement with their discipline and their own intellectual breadth." It is a four-year appointment.
