November 5, 2018: University Senate Report
Office of the Provost
Faculty Participation in the December 2018 Commencement Ceremony and Regalia Rental Information
Faculty participation during Commencement creates a meaningful atmosphere for our graduates and their families. All faculty are invited to participate in the mid-year academic ceremony on Friday, December 21. Any faculty interested in walking in the academic procession or serving as a marshal must wear academic attire. The Office of the Provost will pay for the rental of academic attire for all faculty in departments that report to the provostial area. Orders may be placed at http://www.herffjones.com/faculty. Faculty from reporting departments should use the following information when placing their orders:
Customer Number: 31100647111
Order Number: 4182699
All online orders must be placed by Monday, November 2. Any orders placed after this date are subject to shipping charges and an expedited handling fee. Requests for faculty orders after November 2 will be fulfilled using generic black caps and gowns and a generic hood that may not match the color of your Alma Mater. All late requests must be made in person at Shop Red West (Melville Library).
For more information about Commencement, please visit stonybrook.edu/commencement.
Commons Day Lecture With Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor served as this year’s Commons Day speaker. She gave a lecture to the freshman class on Wednesday, October 17. First-year students were required to read Sotomayor’s memoir, “My Beloved World,” which recounts her life, from growing up in a Bronx housing project to being confirmed as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in August 2009. President Obama had nominated her the previous May.
Sotomayor is the third woman, after Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsberg, to
serve on the High Court. Elena Kagen, also an Obama nominee, became the fourth female
Supreme Court justice in August 2010.
SBU’s First Year Reading Program aims to provide a shared experience, promote critical
thinking, and engage students in discussions of social values and ethics. At Wednesday’s
event, President Samuel L. Stanley Jr., in a fireside chat-style conversation, asked
Sotomayor questions submitted by students.
November Provost’s Lecture Series
Sexual Harassment and the Construction of Knowledge: The Case of Ethnography (Part of the #MeToo Stony Brook Series)
Patricia Richards, Professor of Sociology and Women's Studies, holds the Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professorship at the University of Georgia. She is an affiliate faculty member with Georgia’s Latin American and Caribbean Studies Institute and the Institute of Native American Studies. She received her PhD from the University of Texas at Austin in 2002. She is the author of Pobladoras, Indígenas and the State: Conflicts Over Women's Rights in Chile (Rutgers 2004) and Race and the Chilean Miracle: Neoliberalism, Democracy, and Indigenous Rights (Pittsburgh 2013). Her forthcoming book with Rebecca Hanson (University of Florida) is called Harassed: Gender, Bodies, and Ethnographic Research. It will be published in 2019 by the University of California Press.
Abstract: It is not uncommon for women researchers to experience sexualized interactions, sexual
objectification, and harassment as they conduct research. Nevertheless, in ethnographic
research, these experiences are often left out of ethnographers’ “tales from the field”
and remain unaddressed within our discipline. Drawing from over 50 interviews and
analysis conducted together with Dr. Rebecca Hanson (University of Florida), I will
use women’s experiences with harassment in the field to interrogate the epistemological
foundations of ethnographic methodology, examining three “fixations” of contemporary
ethnography that inform understandings of and reactions to harassment in the field.
These fixations are solitude, danger, and intimacy. Our data show that these fixations
not only put researchers in danger but also have implications for the construction
of ethnographic knowledge. They contribute to silence
surrounding sexual harassment, and are motivated by and reproduce androcentric norms
that valorize certain types of fieldwork. This case study of harassment in the context
of ethnographic fieldwork indicates the urgent necessity for antiracist feminists
to take control of the means of intellectual production in order to transform the
academy.
Co-Sponsors: Concerned Women of College of Arts and Sciences; Center for the Study of Inequality, Social Justice and Policy; Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department; Department of Sociology; Department of History; The Humanities Institute at Stony Brook
Faculty Exhibition 2018 Opens at Zuccaire Gallery, October 17
The Paul W. Zuccaire Gallery is now presenting Faculty Exhibition 2018, featuring new work by Stony Brook University’s acclaimed Department of Art faculty. The exhibit, which will be on display through December 16, includes painting, sculpture, drawing, printmaking, photography, mixed media, video and digital work. The 18 artists engage a broad range of ideas, creating innovative new work.
An opening reception for the artists was held on Wednesday, October 17. The Zuccaire Gallery is located on the first floor of the Staller Center and is open weekdays from 12:00 PM to 4:00 PM and evenings of most Staller Center performances and films. Admission is free, and all events are open to the public.
Faculty Exhibition 2018 includes the work of internationally renowned Stony Brook colleagues such as Howardena Pindell, who will show collage pieces, documentation of Nobuho Nagasawa’s recent NYC public sculpture “Luminescence,” Toby Buonagurio’s brightly colored glazed ceramic “fem-bot,” intricate prints by Martin Levine, an artificial intelligence piece by Stephanie Dinkins, and work by new faculty member Ian Alan Paul, as well as 12 additional artists.
The artists will present Salon Talks throughout the exhibition. Please see the Zuccaire Gallery’s website at http://zuccairegallery.stonybrook.edu/ for information about scheduling.