Dean Philip Khoury of the School of Humanities and Social Science has announced the appointment of Professor Margery Resnick as director of the Program in Women's Studies. She is associate professor of Hispanic studies in the foreign languages and literatures section.
"Margery Resnick is a legendary teacher of Spanish literature and has long been active in women's studies. She has established an ambitious agenda, which includes strengthening undergraduate participation in the program and its international focus and visibility. I look forward to working closely with Margery to realize these goals," Dean Khoury said.
Professor Resnick expressed enthusiasm for her new role and for the Program in Women's Studies at MIT.
"I feel fortunate to be appointed head of women's studies at this time when an energetic group of new faculty members is joining those of us who established and shaped women's studies at MIT for more than a decade. Thus, the Program in Women's Studies is enjoying the energy and new directions offered by this moment," she said.
Michele Oshima, coordinator of the program, commented, "Margery's vision of building our international focus and presence ties in nicely with my previous 10-year career in international business. Additionally, as the one who deals with the finances, I am thrilled to assist in fundraising so we can operate on more than a shoestring budget!"
While director of Women's Studies, Professor Resnick will continue as co-chair of the Burchard Scholars Program for outstanding undergraduates in the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences and as chair of the Margaret MacVicar/AMITA Oral History Project of Women at MIT. She has also served as head of foreign languages and literatures from 1975 -82 and as housemaster of McCormick Hall.
Outside MIT, Professor Resnick serves on the executive committee of the International Institute in Spain, of which she was recently elected president; the board of governors for the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Board of Archives; and as coordinator of the Gifted and Talented Project: MIT in the Public Schools.
Professor Resnick recently completed a study of women in academic medicine for Harvard Medical School/Partners with Dr. Matina Horner, former president of Radcliffe College. In 1995, she became a Margaret MacVicar Faculty Fellow, an honor bestowed on MIT's most outstanding contributors to undergraduate education.
Before coming to MIT in 1971, Professor Resnick was an assistant professor of Spanish at Yale, where she co-taught the first course in women's studies. She is a graduate of Indiana University (BA, 1965), New York University in Madrid (MA, 1966), and Harvard University (PhD, 1972). Her academic research is on 20th-century Spain. She is the co-editor (with Professor Isabelle de Courtivron) of Women Writers in Translation: An Annotated Bibliography, 1954-1981 (Garland Press), and the author of De Soledad y Otros Pesares (Editorial Helios), an edition of the poetry of Pedro Garfias.
The Program in Women's Studies has scheduled numerous events, beginning with tomorrow's Sahin Lecture, "Epistolary Matters: Gender, Writing and Material Culture in 18th-Century France" by Dena Goodman, professor of history and director of the Program on Women's and Gender Studies at Louisiana State University; "Representation of Women In Non-Western Cultures" with Sarat Maharaj, Shirin Neshat and Susan Slyomovics (October 13); novelist Cynthia Ozick (October 27), and the Urban Bush Women (November 7).
For more information on the program, go to http://web.mit.edu/womens-studies/www/.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on September 30, 1998.
