Oct. 11, 2005

Rite of Passage

Earning tenure is cause for celebration — and a few universities honor that milestone in a way that combinesacademic values: They invite newly promoted professors to pick out a book to be added to the library.

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The University of Wisconsin at Madison started such a program last year, at the suggestion of Peter D. Spear, the provost, who got the idea from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Spear said that the program both honors professors and “recognizes the importance of our libraries and the central role they play in the scholarship of the academy.”

Paula Kaufman, university librarian at Illinois, said that she started the program there based on a program at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, although Illinois has tried to expand the idea. At Illinois, each faculty member who is promoted is notified of the honor and asked to select a book and to write a short statement about why that book was selected. A bookplate honoring the faculty member goes in the book, and the statements are displayed with the books for a few weeks and then grouped together in a book honoring the newly tenured or promoted professors. The books for a year are unveiled at a reception.

“I’ve had many honorees say that this is the nicest or most memorable thing that’s happened to them at the university,” Kaufman said.

The list from the last academic year of Illinois honorees shows a range of motivations in book selection. Among the selections:

• Different Faces of Geometry, selected by Steven Bradlow (mathematics) because “with its emphasis on original ideas and open questions, the collection is an inspiring reminder that mathematics is a vibrant and remarkable human endeavor.”
• Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals, selected by Mary Keeagan Eamon (social work), who said that the Saul Alinsky book influenced her when she received it as an undergraduate and that it continued to show “that individuals can make a difference in the struggle for social justice.”
• Lee’s Lieutenants: A Study in Command, selected by Jonathan Hale Foreman (veterinary clinical medicine), who said that he was honoring his father, a Southern military historian, as well as the idea that “there are often two rational sides to any conflict and that it is entirely possible for both sides to feel that they have the moral imperative to promote their agenda.”
• Silent Spring, selected by Jonathan J. Henry (cell and structural biology), who said that Rachel Carson’s book inspired his interest in marine biology and who noted that felt a connection to Carson from working at laboratories where she once worked.
• Harriet the Spy, selected by Ramona Faith Oswald (human and community development) and who said that the children’s classic had been her favorite since she was 9 years old. “She inspired me to research people’s personal lives and not be afraid of controversy,” Oswald wrote, adding that Harriet is “the queer kid trying to figure out how the world works and where she wants to fit in.”

— Scott Jaschik

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