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COLLEGE HONORS FIVE FACULTY MEMBERS UPON RETIREMENT
From left: Joseph C. Liddicoat, Joan Birman, Mirella Servodidio, Sandra Genter, and Nicholas Caraley |
At the annual spring party on May 10, President Judith Shapiro and Provost Elizabeth Boylan honored five faculty members who will retire at the end of the 2003-04 academic year after careers spanning more than four decades at Barnard.
Professors Joan Birman, Demetrios James Caraley, Sandra Genter, Mirella Servodidio and Senior Lecturer Joseph C. Liddicoat were honored at the gathering of 100 faculty and staff, which included Boylan's tribute, the text of which follows:
"One hundred and sixty fours years worth! These five faculty we honor today have accumulated 164 years worth of service to Barnard. ..... (The basic biographical information about each retiree may be found at the end of this speech.). This afternoon I want to focus on their unique contributions to Barnard, and especially what has kept them active and involved in teaching, research and service in recent years.
I am not going to be so indiscreet as to introduce them in order of descending age. I will introduce them in order of years of service, and on that parameter, we have a tie: Jim Caraley and Sandra Genter, both of whom began in 1961.
Provost Elizabeth Boylan and Joan Birman |
Alphabetically then, I'd like to acknowledge first Jim Caraley who has held the title Janet H. Robb Professor of the Social Sciences since 1980. Besides his more-than-marathon leadership of the Department of Political Science and Program in Urban Affairs (now Urban Studies) at Barnard, he was the founding director of the Columbia graduate program in Public Policy, and the long-time co-chair of the University Seminar on the Changing Metropolis in the United States. Jim has played major roles in the governance of the College, and is especially well-known for his energetic service on the Faculty Finance Committee. His recent teaching responsibilities have included the Colloquium on Democratic Political Theory and Ethics and the Research Seminar on American Politics. For over thirty years he has been editor of Political Science Quarterly . His recent publications include "September 11 th , Terrorist Attacks and US Foreign Policy" and "Ending Welfare As We Know It: A Reform Still in Progress" which won an award for the best research in 2001 by the State Academy for Public Administration.
Tied with Jim in terms of years of service is Sandra Genter whose career has been intertwined with those who created the history of dance in the past four decades. Having studied dance composition with the likes of Doris Humphrey and Louis Horst, and having been trained by the great dance artists such as Martha Graham, Jose Limon and Merce Cunningham, Sandra has danced and choreographed in many New York venues. She of course has presented our students in her work at many concerts at Miller Theatre and the Minor Latham Playhouse, and once choreographed a 25 minute quartet of dancers in a piece called Celebration at Grant's Tomb. She too has served on many important faculty committees and as chair of her department, and has been intimately involved in the College's accreditation by the National Association of Schools of Dance. Recent classes have included Kinesiology, Movement Analysis, Contemporary Choreographers and Their Works, and a First Year Seminar on Images of the Body: Race, Class and Gender in the Arts. Not one to rest on her laurels, Sandra achieved certification in 2001 in Pilates Mat Work which she has incorporated into the curriculum ever since.
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Mirella Servodidio, the first of two Barnard alumnae being recognized today, taught briefly at Barnard before Jim and Sandra, then returned in 1964, for a record of service adding up to almost four decades. Author or editor of eight books, Mirella has established an international reputation in modern and contemporary Spanish literature, and continues to serve on editorial boards in her field. Most recently she has taught courses such as "Literature and Culture of Spain: Enlightenment through the Generation of '98" and "Archetypal Patterns in Contemporary Women's Fiction." She has been a dynamic presence, both verbally and visually, on our alphabet soup list of major committees, and it is not a coincidence that she was chosen to serve on, and often to chair, various ad hoc committees at critical junctures in Barnard's and Columbia's histories, e.g. the Commission on the Status of Women for Columbia in 1984, Barnard's Middle States Committee on Curricular Review in 1990, and the Presidential Search Committees of 1980 and 1994. And just this year, she participated in an Oxford University Roundtable on Women's Leadership.
Joan Birman is our second alumna among our retiring faculty. Joan's work is on knots, braids, 3-manifolds and mapping class groups of surfaces. Joan had a number of careers before she came to Barnard in 1973 as professor and chair of mathematics, including raising three children, completing her PhD 20 years after her BA, working in industry and at the Stevens Institute of Technology. She has been awarded an honorary doctorate by the Technion in Israel, as well as fellowships from the Sloan and Guggenhiem Foundations. Joan was awarded the Chauvenet Prize for expository writing in 1996 by the Mathematical Association of America for her article "New points of view in knot theory." She is noted on the Mathematics Genealogy Project's website as having been thesis sponsor of 22 doctoral students, and having 28 intellectual descendants, that is, two of her students have subsequently sponsored six other PhD's. She regularly teaches graduate classes and was very influential in developing the Honors Math sequence.
And another of our honorees today has had multiple careers before coming to Barnard. Joe Liddicoat joined the predecessor of the Environmental Science Department in 1991, and has regularly taught the introductory lab courses, as well as Environmental Awareness in the Pre-College program. Joe, along with his colleague Diane Dittrick, have worked diligently to implement the virtual laboratory version of Brownfield Action, a project that has been led by Peter Bower and colleagues at Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning. Joe and Diane also teamed up to lead a group of Environmental Science students on a Mellon-sponsored trip to Death Valley. Joe's research takes him all over the globe with his collaborators from the American Museum of Natural History, the University of California at Santa Cruz, the US Geological Survey and Coastal Carolina University. He will be performing field work in Italy this summer, then returning for one more semester of full-time teaching before retiring at the end of December.
After forty years of teaching at Phillips Academy, Claude Fuess remarked: "I was still learning when I taught my last class." That spirit is clearly alive and well in each of our faculty colleagues whose retirement is being noted and honored today, and may it be so for many years to come. Please join me in thanking, and congratulating, Jim, Sandra, Mirella, Joan and Joe.
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Joan S. Birman
- B.A., Barnard College, 1948
- M.A., Columbia University, 1950 (Physics)
- PhD, Courant Institute of New York University, 1968 (Math)
- Dr. Sci. Honoris Causa, Israel Institute of Technology (Technion), June 1997
- Systems Analysis Dept., Gen. Precision Equipment, 1950-53
- Systems Analysis Dept., W.L. Maxson Corp., 1953-55
- Assistant Professor Mathematics, Stevens Institute, 1968-71
- Assoc. Professor Mathematics, Stevens Institute of Technology, 1972-73
- Professor Mathematics, Barnard College (Columbia University), 1973 -
- Chairman, Dept. Math., Barnard College, 1973-87, 1989-91, 1995-98
- Foreign Associate, Moscow Mathematical Society
- Editorial Board, Geometry and Topology, 1996-2005
- Editorial Board, Algebraic and Geometric Topology, 2000-05
- Membership in European Academy of Sciences in April 2003.
Demetrios James Caraley
- Janet H. Robb Professor of the Social Sciences and Professor of Political Science
- B.A., summa cum laude, Columbia College, 1954; Columbia Law School (elected to Law Review), 1953-54; M. Phil., Columbia University; Ph.D., Columbia University, 1962.
- Janet H. Robb Professor of the Social Sciences, 1980 - present;
- Professor of Political Science, Barnard College and Columbia University, 1968 - present; Associate Professor, 1965-68; Assistant Professor, 1962-65; Instructor, 1961-62.
- Visiting Professor of Public Affairs, Princeton University, Fall, 1976.
- Chairman, Barnard College Department of Political Science, 1965-1995;
- Chairman, Barnard Program on Urban Affairs, 1968-1995;
- Editor of Political Science Quarterly, 1973 - present.
- Member, Board of Directors, Academy of Political Science, 1985--, President, 1992.
Sandra Genter
- Teacher's College, Columbia University, M.A. 1965
- University of Wisconsin, B.S. 1955
- Modern Dance Technique with viola Farber, May O'Donnell, Jane Dudley, Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, Jose Limon, Pauline Koner
- Ballet Technique with Christina Bernal, Maggie Black, Finis Jhung, Zena Rommett, Alfredo Corvino
- Dance Composition with Anna Sokolow, Doris Humphrey, Louis Horst
- Barnard College 1961-
- Professor in Dance, 1990
- Chair of the Dance Department, 1985 - 89, 1995 - 98
- Associate Professor in Dance, 1980
- Assistant Professor in Dance, 1972 - 79
- Associate Professor in Physical Education 1973 - 79
- Instructor in Physical Education, 1961 - 72.
- Instructor in Physical Education (Dance), City of College of New York, Spring Semester, 1961.
- Instructor in Physical Education (Dance), University of Rhode Island. 1955 - 58.
- Ballet Review covered Lincoln Center Festival '02 July 2002
- Ballet Review covered Lincoln Center Festival '99 July 1999.
Joseph C. Liddicoat
- Ph.D., 1976: University of California (Santa Cruz), Earth Sciences
- A.M., 1970: Dartmouth College, Earth Sciences
- A.B., 1961: Wayne State University (Detroit), English Literature
- Barnard College, Senior Lecturer, 1991 - present
- Coastal Carolina University, Visiting Research Professor, 2000 - present
- American Museum of Natural History: Visiting Research Scientist, 1982 - present
- University of California, Santa Cruz: Visiting Research Scientist, 1984 - 88, 1999 - present.
Mirella Servodidio
- Director of Philosophy, Columbia University, 1964
- Bachelor of Music, Manhattan School of Music, 1955
- Bachelor of Arts, Barnard College, 1955
- Professor of Spanish, Barnard. College, 1975 -
- Associate Professor of Spanish, Barnard College, 1970 - 75
- Assistant Professor of Spanish, Barnard College, 1965 - 70
- Instructor of Spanish, Barnard College, 1964 - 69
- Lecturer in Spanish, Hunter College, 1958 - 64
- Instructor of Spanish, Barnard College, 1957 - 58
- Editorial Review Board, Anales de la literatura Española contemporanea. 1980 -
- Editorial Review Board, Revista Hispanica Moderna, 1990 -
- Chair of Spanish Department, 1970 - 2000, with 8 interrupted years
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