A New Twist at Columbia

October 30, 2007

This morning a new story surfaced regarding the special treatment Nadia Abu El Haj has received during her tenure and promotion process at Barnard.   

It is, of course, glaringly obvious that a single book that received decidedly mixed reviews is not ordinarily sufficient for tenure at Barnard. Now, someone within the Columbia Anthropology Department has told the Columbia Spectator that anthro chairman Dr. Brinkley Messick has been playing favorites sending out emails on the AnthroDish listserv asking colleagues to support "Nadia" in "this difficult time."   http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/27793  

The comments section in the Spec has this:  "How did an untenured professor with only one book become "director of Graduate Studies" at Columbia?"  

And sure enough, this is Nadia'a official title:  

Nadia Abu El-Haj
Director of Graduate Studies (PhD Advisor)
Assistant Professor
Barnard College  

It's pretty unusual for a member of the faculty as junior as El Haj, without tenure to be given the rank of Director of Graduate Studies. Sadly, this is not the first time that the issue of favoritism has been raised with regard to this tenure process.  

Others have suggested favoritism  on the grounds that Judith Shapiro was teaching Anthropoogy at Bryn Mawr when Abu El Haj was an undergraduate and did not describe the extent of their relationship to the faculty at Barnard. ( see: http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/newscontent.php3?artid=14546&print=yes)      

Isn't that an interesting development? That Shapiro was a teacher in Anthropology at Bryn Mawr when Abu El Haj was an undergraduate...

Gee...I wonder why Judith Shapiro didn't mention that in any of her emails to me...