Four Women Named to Endowed Chairs at Hamilton College

Hamilton College, the highly rated liberal arts educational institution in Clinton, New York, has named nine faculty members to endowed chairs. Four of these appointments went to women.

Margaret Gentry was named the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Women’s Studies. Until recently, she had been serving as associate dean of faculty at the college. Professor Gentry joined the Hamilton faculty in 1982. She is the co-editor of Gender and Thought: Psychological Perspectives (Springer, 1989). Professor Gentry is a graduate of Duke University and holds a Ph.D. from Washington University in St. Louis.

Bonnie Urciuoli was appointed the Leonard C. Ferguson Professor of Anthropology. She is the author of Exposing Prejudice: Puerto Rican Experiences of Language, Race, and Class (Westview Press, 1996). Professor Urciuoli joined the college’s faculty in 1988. She is a graduate of Syracuse University and holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

Patricia O’Neill was named the Leonard C. Ferguson Professor of English and Creative Writing. A member of the faculty since 1986, Professor O’Neill is the author of Robert Browning and Twentieth Century Criticism, (Camden House Press, 1995). She is the editor of the rereleased 1883 novel by Olive Schreiner, Story of an African Farm (Broadview Press, 2003). Dr. O’Neill is a graduate of California State University, Los Angeles. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

Ann Silversmith is the new Litchfield Professor of Physics at Hamilton College. Professor Silversmith specializes in developing new laser materials that would be useful in the solid state laser industry. Dr. Silversmith is a graduate of Oberlin College in Ohio. She earned a master’s degree at the University of Wisconsin and a Ph.D. at the Australian National University. Professor Silversmith joined the faculty at Hamilton in 1989 after doing postdoctoral research at the IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California.