Appointments to endowed professorships
Decorations & Distinctions

2006 appointments to endowed professorships

JONATHAN M. HESS

Title: Moses M. and Hannah L. Malkin Term Professor of Jewish History and Culture.

Department(s): Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, also adjunct status in Religious Studies.

Education: Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania; M.A., University of Pennsylvania; M.A., The Johns Hopkins University.

At Carolina since: 1993.

Classes taught at the graduate level: The Quest for the German Jewish Novel, History of German Literature, Nostalgia and Its Discontents:  History and Memory in 19th-Century Literature and Culture, Germans, Jews and the Discourse of Enlightenment, 18th-Century Literature and Culture.

Classes taught at the undergraduate level: German Culture and the Jewish Question, Germans, Jews and the History of Antisemitism (first-year seminar), Age of Goethe, Readings in German Intellectual History.

Research focus: German cultural, intellectual and literary history from the 18th century on, with particular interests in both German-Jewish studies and the legacy of the Enlightenment.

Major publications: “Germans, Jews and the Claims of Modernity” (Yale University Press, 2002); “Reconstituting the Body Politic: Enlightenment, Public Culture and the Invention of Aesthetic Autonomy” (Wayne State University Press, 1999).

Major honors: Germans Jews and the Claims of Modernity was elected by Choice magazine as an outstanding academic title for 2003 and won honorable mention in the Modern Languages Association’s Scaglione Prize in Germanic Languages and Literatures for books published in 2002 and 2003. Grants from: Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship, National Humanities Center (1999-2000); American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship (1999-2000); National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend (1999); Leo Baeck Institute/German Academic Exchange Service Fellowship in German-Jewish History, Leo Baeck Institute-New York (1999).

About the endowment: The Moses M. and Hannah L. Malkin Distinguished Professorship in Jewish History and Culture is named for the Malkins, of Florida and Massachusetts, both 1941 UNC alumni. They contributed $350,000 toward the professorship with the understanding that the University would apply for matching funds from the state’s Distinguished Professors Endowment Trust Fund, bringing the endowment of the professorship to $500,000.

CHRIS ROUSH

Title: James H. Shumaker Term Assistant Professor.

Department: School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Education: Master’s of Mass Communication, University of Florida.

At Carolina since: 2002.

Classes taught at the graduate level: Specialized Reporting.

Classes taught at the undergraduate level: News Writing, Economics Reporting, Business Reporting, Business and the Media.

Research focus: Business journalism and new media.

Major publications: “Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication,” a textbook published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates in 2004; “Profits and Losses: Business Journalism and its Role in Society,” a textbook published by Marion Street Press in 2006.

Major artistic achievements: I write a monthly sports business column for Business North Carolina since, June 2004.

Major honors: Student Undergraduate Teaching and Staff Award, 2005; Junior Faculty Development Award, 2004; University Research Council grant, 2004.

Little known fact: I play basketball at Woollen Gym during lunch.

About the endowment: The James H. Shumaker Term Professorship was established in 1991 by friends, colleagues and alumni to honor “Shu,” a professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Jeff MacNelly, a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist and a former student of Shumaker’s, co-chaired the drive to fund the professorship during the University’s Bicentennial Campaign for Carolina. The term professorship, created from a $150,000 endowment, is used to recognize outstanding teaching in the journalism school. MacNelly named the comic strip “Shoe” after Shumaker and modeled its main character, P. Martin Shoemaker, after him. MacNelly worked for Shumaker at The Chapel Hill Newspaper when he was a student at UNC.

RACHEL A. WILLIS

Title: Bowman and Gordon Gray Distinguished Term Associate Professor, Curriculum in American Studies.

Departments: Associate professor of American Studies, adjunct associate professor of economics.

Education: MA, economics, University of Notre Dame; Ph.D., economics, Northwestern University.

At Carolina since: 1982.

Classes taught at the undergraduate level: Navigating America, Access to Higher Education, Documenting Communities, Access to Work, Women and Economics, The Role of the University in American Life, Field Lab for University course, Service Learning in America.

Research focus: Access to work in the American economy.

Major publications: “Voices of Mill Workers: As Jobs Cross Borders and Border-Crossers Take Jobs” in “The American South in a Global World,” Ed. James L. Peacock, Harry Watson, and Carrie Matthews, UNC Press, 2005; “Kids at Work: The Value of Employer-Sponsored On-Site Child Care Centers,” with R. Connelly and D. DeGraff, Kalamazoo Michigan: Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, 2004; “The Value of Employer-Sponsored Child Care to Employees,” with R. Connelly and D. DeGraff, “Industrial Relations,” October 2004.

Major honors: William C. Friday/Class of 1986 Award for Excellence in Teaching, 1997; the Student Undergraduate Teaching Award, 1994 and 2001; multiple Senior Class Superlative Faculty Awards; Chapman Faculty Fellow, 1994 and 2000; first Bryan Award for Public Service for her role in creating the Center for Public Service and contributing to the APPLES service-learning program, 2000, Moore Undergraduate Research Assistant Program Faculty Mentor three times.

Little known fact: I’m probably the only academic in the United States to dedicate bus garages for two separate transit systems while serving as board chair of Chapel Hill Transit and later the Triangle Transit Authority.

About the endowment: Several distinguished professorships in the University were created by Bowman Gray Jr., president and chair of the board of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. in Winston-Salem. Later his brother, Gordon Gray Sr., added to the fund, and the professorships were renamed for the two men. Previously, the brothers and their mother, Nathalie Lyons Gray, had given UNC the Bowman Gray Swimming Pool in honor of their father, Bowman Gray Sr., Class of 1894.

José-Marie Griffiths

Dean of the School of Information and Library Science (SILS), Griffiths has been appointed to the National Technical Information Service Advisory Board, a part of the federal Department of Commerce. The appointment extends through June 30, 2009.

The board advises the service’s director, as well as the Secretary of Commerce and the undersecretary of commerce for technology, about policies and the service’s mission and future. The service collects information and shares it with the public in an effort to promote economic growth and job creation.

Audrey Heining-Boynton

Professor of foreign language education and English as a second language, Heining-Boynton has been appointed to the Spanish Language Commission on Best Practices, jointly run and operated by The College Board Advanced Placement Program and the Educational Policy Improvement Center (EPIC). The goal of the commission is to identify best practice college courses that will then inform the redesign of Spanish language AP courses and exams.

In addition, Heining-Boynton will head to Beijing this October to serve as delegation leader during the Teaching of World Languages Delegation to the People’s Republic of China. This program encourages bilateral exchanges between American professionals specializing in foreign language education and their professional counterparts in China.  

Gary Marchionini

Cary C. Boshamer Distinguished Professor at SILS, Marchionini has been selected by the Los Angeles Chapter of the American Society of Information Science and Technology to receive its 2006 Contribution to Information Science Award.

Marchionini was selected for the depth and importance of his research in information seeking behavior, human-computer interaction and digital libraries. The program was held on the campus of UCLA on Jan. 11 during the chapter’s annual awards dinner.

Susan Friel

Professor of mathematics education and coordinator of the M.Ed. Program for Experienced Teachers, Friel has been named co-chair of the K-5 writing team that will draft the revisions to the North Carolina State Mathematics Curriculum.

The mathematics curriculum is part of the North Carolina Standard Course of Study. Three teams have been established by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction to revise the mathematics curriculum - K-5, 6-8 and 9-12. A former elementary and middle grades teacher, Friel is particularly interested in the design of effective curricula for mathematics and mathematics education.