The College is set to hire two new faculty members, reducing the number of ongoing tenure-track faculty searches to nine. The anthropology and government departments have selected Gregory Beckett and Andrew Rudalevige, respectively, to begin teaching next fall.
Rudalevige, from Dickinson College, will join Bowdoin as a senior faculty member in American government, pending completion of tenure review by the Board of Trustees.
"The senior search is relatively unusual, but it makes a lot of sense in this particular case," said Allen Springer, associate professor of government and department chair, who chaired the search committee.
Springer said he expects that the addition of a senior faculty member will help "minimize the turnover" of American government professors. The department currently has three associate professors and one assistant professor that specialize in American politics.
"It's easier to leave proof with bigger departments because people are on leave virtually every year," said Springer. "From the student perspective, it's nice to have more predictability about who will be here from year to year."
Rudalevige earned his Ph.D. from Harvard and his B.A. from the University of Chicago. He brings 11 years of teaching experience from Dickinson, where he teaches courses on American and British government.
Rudalevige is currently a Walter E. Beach '56 Distinguished Chair in Political Science at Dickinson and served as department chair from 2006 to 2007. He has written or co-written four books, most recently "The Obama Presidency: Appraisals and Prospects," which analyzes the first two years of Obama's presidency.
The government department was contemplating adding a senior faculty position for more than a year due to its high student enrollment and faculty turnover. According to Springer, an outside review of the government department by a visiting committee prompted the department to request a senior faculty position from the Curriculum and Educational Policy Committee last spring.
The government department's search for a senior faculty member is unique among the departments that are hiring professors this year. A variety of departments, including neuroscience, chemistry, romance languages, mathematics and art history, are in the midst of conducting tenure track searches.
The department of anthropology recently hired Gregory Beckett as an assistant professor. Beckett, who received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, is a political anthropologist with a focus on disaster, response and humanitarian intervention in Haiti.
According to Scott MacEachern, professor of anthropology and department chair, who chaired the search committee, about 175 candidates applied for the position.
MacEachern said the search was "a fairly straightforward process." The anthropology department worked with members of the sociology department and the Office of Academic Affairs to post advertisements, read applications, formulate long and short lists of applicants, and interview candidates.
"I think it's fair to say that the departments do most of the work," said Associate Dean of Academic Affairs Jim Higginbotham. "With that long list, in most cases, we follow the department's lead."
In the coming weeks, the College will continue to bring candidates to campus for interviews to fill the nine remaining tenure track positions.
Dean for Academic Affairs Cristle Collins Judd said, "The intention is to have people in place for July 1."