Saturday, March 01, 2008

Native American studies prof denied tenure at University of Michigan

Chronicle of Higher Ed:
Students and faculty members at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor have started an e-mail campaign to protest negative decisions in the tenure bid of Andrea L. Smith, who is interim director of the campus’s program in Native American studies.

Ms. Smith is an assistant professor with a joint appointment in Michigan’s American-culture program and women’s-studies department. The two programs split on her tenure bid, with American culture voting yes and women’s studies voting no. Then, last week, a panel in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts sided with women’s studies and voted to reject Ms. Smith’s bid. The decision now goes to the provost, Teresa A. Sullivan.
Never heard of her, know nothing about her yet except that she wrote a book called Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide (South End Press, natch), but a commenter at the "Think Girl" blog mentioned in the piece quotes this evaluation of one of her courses at RateMyProfessors:
This course was extremely easy and interesting. The one class that Andrea taught was amazing and really taught me a lot. The rest of the classes she had guest lecturers who ranged in quality. The course had a hands on activist component and in the end our groups collectively decided on our own grades.

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