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| Vol. 19, No. 6 | Oct. 7, 1999 |
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| Vol. 19, No. 6 | Oct. 7, 1999 |
Four University of Delaware professors have been honored with new named professorships that began this fall, Provost Mel Schiavelli announced.
"Named professorships are a time-honored way of honoring professors who excel in their fields and demonstrate distinguished service as teachers and scholars," Schiavelli said. "The four individuals honored this year represent some of the University's best."
New named professors are Joan L. Brown, Elias Ahuja Professor of Spanish; George C. Hadjipanayis, Richard B. Murray Professor of Physics; Laurence S. Seidman, Chaplin Tyler Professor of Economics; and Harry L. Shipman, Annie Jump Cannon Professor of Physics and Astronomy.
In announcing Brown's appointment, President David P. Roselle cited her work on the contemporary novelist Carmen Martín Gaite and her extensive scholarship on contemporary Spanish women writers.
Brown first discovered and wrote about Martín Gaite while a graduate student. Since then, Martín Gaite has gone from being virtually unknown in this country to being the most-studied contemporary woman writer of Spain. Not incidentally, Martín Gaite has developed a close relationship with UD and has spoken on the campus.
Brown also has studied a spectrum of contemporary Spanish women writers and, with a colleague, analyzed U.S. graduate school reading lists to determine the Hispanic canon--what Hispanic works of literature are studied and taught.
Her current research project is a book that looks at the value judgments implicit in the current canon and advocates new criteria to achieve a more representative canon for the future. She also is developing new courses in contemporary Hispanic literature and culture that incorporate both majority and minority views of society.
With a master's degree and doctorate in romance languages from the University of Pennsylvania, Brown has published two books, Secrets From the Back Room: The Fiction of Carmen Martín Gaite and Women Writers of Contemporary Spain: Exiles in the Homeland, and the textbook, Conversaciones Creadoras-coauthored with Martín Gaite-now in its second edition.
"I am honored to have been chosen the Elias Ahuja Professor of Spanish. To me the chair represents a validation of my scholarship and teaching, all of which have been done here at Delaware. The chair affords hours and resources to pursue scholarly passions now and in the future. Personally, it is very meaningful to me to follow in the footsteps of the highly distinguished scholar and teacher who previously held this chair, A. Julian Valbuena."
President Roselle cited Hadjipanayis for his "impressive research program, numerous publications, and the large volume of students that you have advised," in the letter announcing his appointment.
For the past 20 years, Hadjipanayis has been involved in pioneer research on permanent magnets in an attempt to understand their behavior and in searching for new materials with the ultimate goal of producing stronger and lower cost magnets. In the last 10 years, a significant portion of his research has been devoted to magnetic nanoparticles, and more recently, to highly anisotropic nanoparticles embedded in a nonmagnetic matrix that can be used for high-density magnetic recording media.
Part of the team that discovered Nd-Fe-B high strength magnets, which are widely used in industry, Hadjipanayis also lists securing a $2.8 million MURI grant for the development of high temperature magnets as among his career highlights. Director of four NATO Advanced Study Institutes, he also received a prestigious Humbolt Senior Award and the Arts and Sciences Best Scholar Award in 1998.
Hadjipanayis said he was honored and pleased that his colleagues nominated him for the prestigious award "as I feel that there is no greater satisfaction than having one's accomplishments recognized by fellow colleagues."
He said the named professorship will enable him to attract high quality graduate students and postdoctoral researchers to continue and further the research of the magnetics lab and "will help me secure my current grants and make me more successful in future competitions for securing grant money." He also said the professorship will help "elevate the image of the Department of Physics and Astronomy nationally and internationally."
Hadjipanayis received his bachelor's degree in physics from the University of Athens, Greece.
He went on to earn his master's degree in physics in 1974 and his doctorate in physics in 1979, both from the University of Manitoba, Canada. He joined the University of Delaware faculty in 1989 after working at Kansas State University, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and the University of Nebraska.
He also served as a research scientist for the Research and Development Center of the Kollmorgen Corporation in Radford, Va.
In a letter announcing Seidman's appointment, Roselle cited his impressive record of scholarly accomplishments, his work on tax policy and Social Security reform and his commitment to the University's MBA program.
Seidman said he was "honored" by the professorship and that it will allow him to continue the work he has been doing.
"It's very gratifying to be given a named professorship," he said. "It says people respect you for your past work and expect at least as much out of you in the future."
Seidman's impressive record of scholarly accomplishments includes a prolific record of publication in top journals and presentations of his research on tax policy to a wide variety of audiences.
His work has achieved national acclaim and has been praised in letters of support from Nobel laureate Robert Solow, Deputy Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and Martin Feldstein, former chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers.
Seidman's areas of research interest are fiscal policy and economic growth. In addition to his numerous journal articles, he is the author of several books, Funding Social Security: A Strategic Alternative; Economic Parables and Policies; The USA Tax: A Progressive Consumption Tax; The Earned Income Tax Credit-Anti-Poverty Effectiveness and Labor Market Effects, with Saul D. Hoffman, economics; and Saving for America's Economic Future: Parables and Policies.
His other areas of expertise include macroeconomics, public sector economics, capital accumulation, economic growth strategy and fiscal policy.
Seidman earned his undergraduate degree at Harvard University and his doctorate in economics at the University of California at Berkeley. He joined UD in 1982.
In announcing Shipman's professorship, Roselle cited "national recognition of your work in the area of white dwarf stars...your excellent and innovative teaching techniques and your leadership in using the Hubble Space Telescope for investigation."
"I am really honored to hold a professorship named after Delaware's premier astronomer," Shipman said. "Annie Jump Cannon was a really neat person. She accomplished so much at a time when women's contributions to science were, unfortunately, considerably undervalued. For example, her major work is usually referred to as the 'Henry Draper' catalogue. Draper's widow, not Draper, paid for it. Annie Jump Cannon and her staff of (mostly female) assistants, not Draper, actually did the work."
Shipman's scholarly life has expanded in recent years to include science education as well as the astrophysics he has studied for years. The white dwarf stars he studies are the final evolutionary states of low-mass stars like our sun. He conducts this research using whatever telescopes in space he can, including the Hubble Space Telescope.
In science education, Shipman studies the use of student-centered learning strategies like collaborative learning and problem-based learning in the college setting, particularly in large classes. He also has done some teaching and writing in the area of science and religion and in student understanding of the nature of science.
In the classroom, Shipman is well known for his energetic style, which makes use of costumes, props and other theatrical devices. He is an amateur ice skater and has won numerous awards, including a first place for freestyle skating in 1994 and two gold and two silver medals in August, all from the Ice Skating Institute's World Recreational Figure Skating Championship competitions.
Shipman received his undergraduate degree from Harvard and his master's and doctoral degrees from the California Institute of Technology. He taught at Yale University and the University of Missouri before joining UD. He is an active member and former faculty director of the Center for Teaching Effectiveness and an active member of the Institute for Transforming Undergraduate Education.
-Beth Thomas
