Some Notable Appointments of Women to Faculty Positions

Hazel M. McFerson was promoted from associate to full professor in the department of public and international affairs at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.

A former Fulbright Scholar in the Philippines, Dr. McFerson is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Boston. She holds a master’s degree from the Fletcher School of International Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and a Ph.D. in political science from Brandeis University.

Cristanne Miller was named Edward H. Butler Professor of Literature in the English department at the University of Buffalo. She has been on the faculty at the university since 2006. She previously taught at Pomona College in California.

Dr. Miller holds bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees from the University of Chicago. She is the author of four books including, Emily Dickinson: A Poet’s Grammar (Harvard University Press, 1987). Dr. Miller is also the editor of The Emily Dickinson Journal.

Nancy Staudt will join the faculty at the Gould School of Law at the University of Southern California. She will be the inaugural holder of the Edward G. Lewis Chair in Law. She has been serving as a professor of tax law at Northwestern University.

Dr. Staudt is a graduate of Ohio State University and the University of Minnesota Law School. She earned a Ph.D. in public policy at the University of Chicago. She recently published The Judicial Power of the Purse: How Courts Fund National Defense in Times of Crises (University of Chicago Press).

Kari Weil was named University Professor of Letters at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. She has been on the Wesleyan faculty since 2007. Dr. Weil previously taught at Wake Forest University.

Professor Weil is a graduate of Cornell University. She earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. at Princeton University. She is the author of Androgyny and the Denial of Difference (University of Virginia Press).

Jolene Rickard, an associate professor in the department of history of art and visual studies at Cornell University, was named director of the university’s American Indian Program. The interdisciplinary program offers about 20 courses each year and undergraduate and graduate minors.

Professor Rickard has been on the Cornell faculty since 2006. She earned a Ph.D. at the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Linda Ruth was appointed to the Joseph S. Bruno Chair in the College of Human Sciences at Auburn University. In this position she will direct the Joseph S. Bruno Auburn Abroad in Italy program. She has been serving as an associate professor of architecture.

Professor Ruth is a graduate of the University of Tennessee and holds a master’s degree from Auburn University.