Three Women Appointed to Named Chairs at Pennsylvania State University

The College of Liberal Arts at Pennsylvania State University has announced the appointment of seven faculty members to named chairs. Three of these appointments went to women.

Emily Grosholz was appointed the Edwin Erie Sparks Professor of Philosophy, English, and African American Studies. Professor Grosholz is a historian of early modern philosophy. She is the author of the soon to be published Starry Reckoning: Reference and Analysis in Mathematics and Cosmology (Springer 2016). Dr. Grosholz is a graduate of the University of Chicago. She holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Yale University.

Sandra Spanier was appointed the Liberal Arts Research Professor of English and Women’s Studies. She is the general editor of the Hemingway Letters Project, which is expected to become a 17-volume work published by Cambridge University Press. Professor Spanier has also produced several books on the author Kay Boyle. Dr. Spanier is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Chicago. She earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. at Pennsylvania State University.

Jennifer Van Hook was named the Liberal Arts Research Professor of Sociology and Demography. She joined the faculty at Penn State in 2007 after serving on the faculty at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. She is the co-editor of Gender and Couple Relationships (Springer, 2016) and Families in an Era of Increasing Inequality: Diverging Destinies (Springer, 2015). Dr. Van Hook is a graduate of Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. She holds a master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Texas at Austin.