Last week, Princeton’s Council for International Teaching and Research announced four new Global Scholars who have been awarded three-year appointments at the University beginning in the years 2011-12 and 2012-13. The four individuals are scholars of different academic disciplines and all are from different parts of the globe.
The new scholars for the 2011-12 school year are Shige Peng, Lilia Schwarcz and Slavoj Zizek. Donnacha Dennehy will join next year.
The Global Scholars program is only one of many initiatives that the council oversees at the University. Established in 2008 in response to the President’s Advisory Committee on Internationalization, the council works to promote cross-border and cross-cultural collaboration between academics and students from around the world. The Global Scholars program facilitates the recruitment of foreign scholars to teach at the University.
Each scholar joins a certain department and fulfills a requirement of five weeks worth of academic work at the University per semester. Often, Global Scholars must split their time between the University and their home institutions.
History professor Jeremy Adelman, the director of the council, said he believes that the Global Scholars program is especially valuable to the University community. “Knowledge has gone global,” Adelman said. “One of the objectives of the program is to integrate the world’s great talent into our community.” Since its creation, the council has appointed a total of 11 scholars.
The four newly appointed scholars are well-distinguished with a litany of academic honors and are all highly visible figures in their respective disciplines.
Shige Peng, a leading figure in probability theory and financial mathematics, will join the departments of mathematics and operations research and financial engineering during his commitment with the University. A professor at Shandong University in China, Peng said he hopes to aid collaborative efforts between University scholars and his colleagues in China. Additionally, he will advise undergraduates and graduate students, teach courses and organize seminars on his areas of expertise.
Lilia Schwarcz, a faculty member of the anthropology department at the University of Sao Paolo in Brazil, will work in the University’s departments of history, anthropology, Spanish and Portuguese languages and the Program in Latin American Studies. She said she plans to create research opportunities for University students and her Brazilian colleagues as well as co-teach a freshman seminar.
Slavoj Zizek, a leading authority in cultural and literary theory, will work with the University’s department of English. Zizek said he plans to organize exchanges between University students and faculty with his colleagues at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia where he is a senior researcher. Additionally, he will present lectures and seminars on “Theories of Ideology.”
Donnacha Dennehy, a world-renowned composer and lecturer at Trinity College Dublin, will work with the Department of Music. During his time at the University, he said he plans to conduct graduate seminars, host workshops for undergraduates and give performances showcasing his work.
Each year’s Global Scholars selection is the culmination of a multi-stage process that begins by inviting everyone in the University’s faculty to nominate candidates. The 14-person council then evaluates each candidate on an individual basis by speaking with the faculty nominator and allowing the nominator to elaborate on their candidates.
The council takes into account the time constraints or conflicts of certain scholars, especially because they commute back and forth between institutions.
“There is not a one-size-fits-all for what role they will play at the University,” Adelman said. “We work with candidates to maximize their value added to the community.”
This includes determining how the scholars will spread their time across research, teaching and advising.
The University financially supports the scholars during their three-year tenure. This is critical to enticing the world’s great talent to come, according to Adelman. “We would not be able to get great people here if we did not make it worth their while,” he said. “The University offers generous stipends.”
“It is important to understand that this is a multi-year appointment; we want reiterated commitments,” Adelman added. “The most important objective of the program is to have global flows of scholars going across borders, promoting Princeton in the world and bringing the world to Princeton.”
The scholars could not be reached for comment at the time of publication.
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