Five Colleges, Incorporated: Largest Number of Joint Appointees Ever

Home > Archive > Largest Number of Joint Appointees Ever

Largest Number of Joint Appointees Ever

Some of the current 14 joint appointees gathered at Five Colleges in September to meet and discuss aspects of their shared positions with Five College staff. (Clockwise from left): Lorna M. Peterson (executive director, Five Colleges), Baba Hilman, Nathan Therien (director of academic programs, Five Colleges), Jon Western, Mohammed Jiyad, Richard Chu, Nitasha Sharma, Sue Dickman (Five College staff), Catharine Newbury, Jenny Perlin, Jane Degenhardt. Photo by Paul Schnaittacher.

Five Colleges marks its 40th anniversary this year with the largest cohort of joint appointees at any time in its history. Fourteen faculty members are currently teaching at the campuses in shared positions. Each has a declared home campus with teaching duties at one or more of the other campuses. What’s more, their number is likely to grow in the next several years as a consequence of a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which will make possible up to eight additional joint appointments under a new model for these kinds of positions.

In a variation on the traditional short-term, joint appointment that is shared by all five campuses, appointments to be made under this new grant will be tenure track and may be shared by two, three, four, or five campuses. A description of this model was distributed at the annual meeting of Five College department chairs as a way to encourage departments to consider how this type of appointment might serve some areas of common need. The Five College Deans will consider proposals from interested departments beginning in November of this year.

Listed here are those currently serving in joint positions, some dating back as far as 1978, others appointed more recently.

Michael Rhodes (fall 1978), Five College professor of geochemistry, UMass Amherst (teaching courses in volcanology and geoscience, his x-ray flourescence laboratory is used by Five College students and faculty members)

Michael Klare (spring 1984), director of the Five College program in Peace and World Security Studies (PAWSS), and professor of social sciences, Hampshire College

Robert Eisenstein (fall 1985), director, Five College Early Music Collegium and visiting lecturer in music, Mount Holyoke College

Mohammed Jiyad (fall 1985), senior lecturer in Arabic, Mount Holyoke College

Elizabeth Mazzocco (fall 1990), founder-director, Five College Center for the Study of World Languages, and professor of Italian, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Jon Western (fall 2000), Five College assistant professor of international relations, Mount Holyoke College (continuing in a position originally held by Anthony Lake)

Constance Valis Hill (July 2000), Five College associate professor of dance, Hampshire College (specializes in dance and dance history; author of the critically acclaimed book Brotherhood in Rhythm: The Jazz Tap Dancing of the Nicholas Brothers)

Catharine Newbury (fall 2003), Five College professor of government, Smith College (teaching courses in government, especially in African Studies)

Baba Hillman (July 2004), Five College assistant professor of video/film production, Hampshire College (supporting the new Five College major in film studies)

Richard Chu (fall 2004), Five College assistant professor of history, UMass Amherst (teaching courses in the new Five College program in Asian/Pacific/American Studies, which offers a Five College certificate)

Sergey Glebov (fall 2004), Five College assistant professor of Russian history, Smith College (serving in a three-year, renewable position replacing recent and anticipated retirements in Russian history and government)

Nitasha Sharma (fall 2004), Five College assistant professor of American studies, Amherst College (serving in a three-year, renewable position in support of the Five College Asian/Pacific/American certificate program)

Jane Degenhardt (fall 2005), Five college assistant professor of English, University of Massachusetts Amherst. She has special interests in cross-cultural contact between East and West during the Renaissance and in contemporary Asian American and African American literature.

Jenny Perlin (fall 2005), Five College visiting artist in film studies, Mount Holyoke College (a continuing visiting position in support of the Five College film major)

Courses being taught at the campuses by joint appointees in fall semester 2005:

at Amherst College

Richard Chu--Race, Empire, and Transnationalism: Chinese Diasporic Communities in the World
Nitasha Sharma--Hapa Issues: Asian Americans of Mixed Racial Descent

at Hampshire College

Sergey Glebov--Ethnic Conflict
Constance Valis Hill--Jazz Modernism
Baba Hillman--Architectonics of the Body and Urban Space
Michael Klare--Political Research and Writing

at Mount Holyoke

Jane Degenhardt--Asian American and African American Fiction
Robert Eisenstein--History of Western Music
Mohammed Jiyad--Elementary Arabic I, Intermediate Arabic I
Michael Klare--Global Resource Politics
Catherine Newbury--The Rwanda Genocide in Comparative Perspective
Jenny Perlin--Production Workshop/Moving Image
Nitasha Sharma--Topics in American Studies: Cracking the Colorlines: Asian American and Black Relations in the U.S.
Jon Western--The United States and the Promotion of Democracy and Human Rights

at Smith

Sergey Glebov--Russia and Its Cultural Frontiers: Empire and Nations, 1552–1914
Baba Hillman--The Body and Space: Reinventing the Narrative (advanced video seminar)
Jon Western--American Hegemony and International Security in the 21st Century

at UMass Amherst

Richard Chu--Empire, Race and the Philippines: Indigenous Peoples and the Spanish, U.S., and Japanese Imperial Projects
Jane Degenhardt--Sex, Race & Stereotypes: Asian American & African American Fiction
Constance Valis Hill--Twentieth-Century American Dance: Sixties Vanguard to Nineties Hip-Hop
Jenny Perlin--Intermediate Video Art Production
John Michael Rhodes--Dynamic Earth and X-Ray Fluorescence

Page originally created 10/28/05

web site design by gravity switch, inc.