The position is the 20th endowed chair in the College of Liberal Arts and the 241st such chair at the University. An endowed chair is a professorship funded by an endowment of private money rather than by the University's normal payroll. CLA Dean Steven Rosenstone said the endowment will allow the program to recruit a senior scholar with an international reputation in Jewish and Old Testament Hebrew studies who can help lead the program. Rosenstone said the college hopes to hire the new professor by fall 1997.
Spectacular teachers help build programs, class offerings and enrollment.
A six-member search committee has already begun looking for the person who will fill the new position. Philip Sellew, chairman of the committee, has already received several inquiries about the chair. Rosenstone hopes CLA will also hire an assistant professor in the 1997-98 school year to help increase the program's course offerings and research. Like many other CLA programs that have faced budget cuts, Classical and Near Eastern Studies programs have fought to maintain faculty positions and class offerings. Department chairman William Malandra said the college has reinstated the position the department lost when the University fired Professor Tzvee Zahavy in April 1995 for holding faculty positions concurrently at the University of Minnesota and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.