Northwestern University’s faculty members recognized for service to Northwestern
History professor Laura Hein and Organization of Women Faculty (OWF) co-chairs Karen Alter and Leslie Harris will be honored with this year’s Provost Awards for Exemplary Service.
Given annually by Northwestern’s Office of the Provost, the award recognizes full-time faculty members who provide outstanding service to the University or significant contributions to their individual units and are exemplars of good academic citizenship.
Honorees receive a $5,000 award and will be recognized during a reception in the spring.
Laura Hein pushes for global studies
Laura Hein is the Harold H. and Virginia Anderson Professor of History at Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences.
She is being recognized for her long record of extraordinary service to the department, the school and the University, using her scholarship to create an intellectual vision and strategically push for global studies at the University.
A nominee said of Hein: “Laura worked tirelessly to make Asia — and the non-Western world beyond Asia — a presence on our campus,” and in so doing, has transformed the University.
Hein has consistently advocated for non-Western history in her department and for a more global perspective in the College and University. She chaired committees such as the Globalization Committee for one NU strategic plan and led the effort that established the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures. More recently, Hein demonstrated her visionary thinking as chair of the dean of libraries search by pushing the committee to think in new ways about the libraries’ role in information systems.
Karen Alter, the Norman Dwight Harris Professor of International Relations and professor of political science, and Leslie Harris, professor of history, are faculty members at Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and co-chairs of the Organization of Women Faculty (OWF).
They are being recognized for providing an effective voice for women faculty during the 2020-2021 academic year, a time of unprecedented disruption and difficulty.
Alter and Harris implemented OWF’s survey of women faculty and gathered data on the pandemic’s impact — especially on caregivers and faculty of color. They advocated on behalf of women faculty, with attention to both short-term and long-term impacts and the need to center equity.
The survey provided the basis for OWF’s report on issues that Northwestern could address. Provost Kathleen Hagerty later created a working group to recommend policies, programs and grants to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on faculty.
Past OWF co-chair Dana Hill, formerly clinical professor of law at Pritzker School of Law, also will be recognized. OWF represents tenure-track and non-tenure-eligible women faculty in all schools except Feinberg, which has its own organization.