Four faculty appointments with tenure were made this summer by the Academic Affairs Committee of the Board of Trustees, but two of them involve faculty who are already at Emory.
Harvey Klehr, the Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Political Science since 1985, was named Mellon Professor of Politics and History, and James M. Gustafson, who came to Emory in 1988 as the Henry R. Luce Professor of Humanities and Comparative Studies, was named the Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Comparative Studies and Religion.
Additionally, Richard Rambuss was appointed associate professor of English, and Richard C. Martin was appointed professor of religion.
Klehr succeeds Dan Carter, who had served as Mellon Professor of the Humanities until he became the Kenan Professor of History in 1994. In nominating Klehr to the chair, Emory College Dean David Bright said Klehr's field is the history of political theory, and his intellectual approach and territory is fundamentally humanistic rather than social scientific. The Mellon professorship was created in 1974 to recognize scholarly effort and is funded by the Mellon Foundation.
"Harvey is a tireless scholar, who has published two books in the past 12 months with a third in process for later this year," said Bright. Klehr's work, which includes eight books, has earned a nomination for the Pulitzer Prize and the Bancroft Prize and has been selected for various book clubs. His research record includes dozens of papers, reviews and essays.
Klehr chaired the political science department from 1989-95, during which time the department emerged as the most improved graduate program among other political science programs in the country, according to the National Research Council (NRC). In fact, the department made the biggest jump of any graduate social science program in NRC rankings during that period. Klehr also received the Scholar-Teacher Award in 1995 and the Emory Williams Distinguished Teaching Award in 1983.
He has been active in the university community serving on various University Senate committees, the executive board of Atlanta Hillel and many other activities. Klehr began his teaching career at Emory in 1971 after he received his doctoral degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill that year.
During the past eight years, Gustafson facilitated the Luce Faculty Seminar, an innovative opportunity for select faculty to engage in cross-disciplinary inquiry around broad topics such as "Responsibility," "Describing, Explaining, Valuing," "Nature" and "Human Being: Being Human." The funding for the Luce Seminar ended last semester.
"The ensuing discourse nurtured by Jim through the Luce Seminar has significantly contributed to the present and emerging interdisciplinary focus of the faculty at Emory," said Provost Billy Frye. "Dr. Gustafson is a truly preeminent faculty member -- `a scholar's scholar,'" said Frye. "It is wonderful that we will continue to benefit from his presence among us as Woodruff Professor." Gustafson will teach undergraduate, graduate and faculty seminars that will continue to foster interdisciplinary inquiry and discourse.
Gustafson came to Emory from the University of Chicago, where he was the University professor of theological ethics for 16 years. Prior to Chicago, he spent 18 years at the Yale University Divinity School. Gustafson earned a Ph.D. from Yale in 1955. He has written 14 books and numerous scholarly articles. He holds 11 honorary doctorate degrees, was a Guggenheim Fellow at Princeton, a Guggenheim Fellow in Residence at Lund University and a Kent Fellow at the Society of Religion and Higher Education. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
"Richard Rambuss is one of the most promising younger Renaissance scholars in the country," said John Sitter, English department chair. Rambuss received a bachelor's degree from Amherst College and his doctorate from Johns Hopkins University in 1990. He taught for two years at Kenyon College and since 1992 had been a faculty member at Tulane University.
His first book, Spenser's Secret Career, published in 1993, examined Spenser's primary professional life as secretary to two Elizabethan noblemen. The book provided a new frame for understanding Spenser's poetry by "establishing clearly political ambitions to which the poetic career was demonstrably subservient," said Sitter. Rambuss's second book, Closet Devotions, scheduled to be published next year, focuses on 17th century devotional poetry. A reviewer called the book "downright amazing in its revelations."
Rambuss received the Isabel MacCaffrey Prize from the Spenser Society in 1993 and a Folger Shakespeare Library Fellowship in 1995. At Tulane he was a Newcomb freshmen adviser, served on the Newcomb Honor Board and participated in two NEH-sponsored faculty seminars for the development of a cultural studies minor.
According to Frye, reports on Rambuss's teaching are also positive. Tulane colleagues said Rambuss's classes "always fill to capacity" and that "reading the comments of his students is a humbling experience."
Martin will become chair of the department of religion replacing Paul Courtright, who served as chair from 1989-96. Broadly versed in the history, culture and religion of the Middle East, Martin is best known for his 1982 book Islam: A Cultural Perspective, which was revised in 1995 as Islamic Studies: A History of Religions Approach. In more specifically theological scholarship, Martin has two forthcoming books, Critical Islam and Language, Truth and Miracle that deal with a branch of early Islamic scholastic thought known as the Mu'tazila. He has written numerous theoretical articles, edited two volumes of essays and won prestigious grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Fulbright Commission and the American Research Center in Cairo.
Martin chaired the religious studies department at Arizona State University from 1983-89 and served on the faculty there from 1975 to 1995. He comes to Emory from Iowa State University, where he served as associate professor in charge of religious studies last year. Martin has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Religion and Journal of the American Academy of Religion. He is active in the Middle East Studies Association and the Islamic Section of the American Academy of Religion.
As a teacher Martin has been described by a former department chair as very effective at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, known for "well prepared and carefully crafted lectures," high expectations concerning student performance and for being an outstanding mentor to individuals focusing on the Islamic area.
He received a bachelor's degree from Montana State University, a bachelor of divinity degree from the University of Dubuque, a Th.M. from Princeton Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from New York University.
--Jan Gleason