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Faculty and Staff Notes for February 28, 2000
Laurie McMillin, assistant professor of expository writing and religion, presented a paper at the conference of the American Comparative Literature Association at Yale University February 25. Her paper, "Tibetans in English: Approaches to Tibetan Autobiography in English," was part of a panel called Autobiography between Literature and the Social Sciences. The paper explored the recent wave of Tibetan autobiographies published in English and how these texts reflect Western desires and Tibetan self-interests.
Ross Peacock, director of institutional research, will present findings from focus groups involving college presidents and institutional-research directors at the annual Consortium On Financing Higher Education (COFHE) meeting of institutional-research directors at Georgetown University in April. Ross and a colleague from Columbia University will discuss the majors themes arising from the focus groups and the monograph that the Mellon Foundation will publish and distribute to presidents of all private liberal arts institutions. Oberlin's institutional- research web site will be showcased during a presentation at the meeting by staff from Duke University and Georgetown. The presentation, Practicalities of Easy Access to Summary Data, will feature Oberlin's site as a model for such access.
This month the University of California Press will republish Carey McWilliams's classic exposé of agribusiness, Factories in the Field: The Story of Migratory Farm Labor in California. In a new foreword Douglas Sackman, visiting assistant professor of history, writes that Factories in the Field was "a landmark of socially engaged history [that] showed how the relationship of America's many peoples to the land shapes and is shaped by the dynamics of class, race, and citizenship." The book was originally published in 1939--the same year as The Grapes of Wrath--and it was widely regarded as the nonfictional counterpart to Steinbeck's great novel, Doug says. "Together, the works drew national attention to the plight of farm workers in California. . . . Incidentally, McWilliams's son Wilson Carey McWilliams once taught at Oberlin." Doug's article "'Nature's Workshop': The Work Environment and Workers' Bodies in the California Citrus Industry" appears in the January 2000 issue of the journal Environmental History.
Ben Schiff, professor of politics, spent the weekend of February 19-20 in Minster Lovell, United Kingdom (near Oxford), at a workshop organized by the International Development Research Centre (of Canada), the Royal Institute of International Affairs (of the United Kingdom), and the Palestinian Refugee Research Net. The off-the-record workshop was to discuss the future of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in the light of final status negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization. About 25 experts--including foreign-ministry officials from Australia, the UK, Sweden, Canada, and the Palestinian Authority and representatives from the World Bank, nongovernmental and U.N. organizations, and academic research institutions--met for two days. Discussion ranged widely about the future of the Palestinian refugees and the U.N. organization that has helped them for the last 50 years. Ben's book Refugees unto the Third Generation: U.N. Aid to Refugees (Syracuse University Press, 1995) is considered central, he says, to the academic work that has been done on UNRWA.
The College and Conservatory Faculty Council election results are in. Elected to the Conservatory Faculty Council were
Elected to the College Faculty Council were
In the conservatory, 44 percent returned nominating ballots, and 46 percent returned final ballots. In the college, 41 percent returned nominating ballots, and 53 percent returned final ballots.
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