RENOWNED PSYCHOLOGIST CAROL GILLIGAN JOINS NYU FACULTY

joan.dim@nyu.edu

---Professor Gilligan to depart Harvard after 30 years

New York City -- Professor Carol Gilligan, the renowned Harvard psychologist whose groundbreaking research on gender and human development resulted in a shift in psychological inquiry and the human sciences, will join the faculty of New York University as a full-time professor in June, 2002.

Ann Marcus, dean of the School of Education; Catharine R. Stimpson, dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Science; and John Sexton, dean of the NYU School of Law announced Gilligan's unique interdisciplinary appointment. Gilligan's chief appointment will be at NYU's School of Education; however, she will spend significant time at NYU's School of Law.

The announcement of Professor Gilligan's appointment to NYU comes concurrently with the announcement of a $12.5 million gift to Harvard by Jane Fonda to launch a Harvard Center on Gender and Education. Fonda's $12.5 million gift, inspired by Professor Gilligan's work, includes $2.5 million for the creation of an endowed faculty chair to be named for Professor Gilligan.

Professor Gilligan has taught as a visiting professor at the NYU School of Law for the past three years. As a result, she has reconnected to the life of New York City-the place of her birth-and responded to and enjoyed the rigorous intellectual environment provided by the Law School's faculty and students. NYU School of Law, in little more than a decade, has transformed itself into one of the most progressive and competitive legal educational institutions in the world.

"Professor Carol Gilligan is one of our nation's great thinkers and educators," said Dean Sexton. "Since the appearance of her widely acclaimed book, In A Different Voice, Psychological Theory and Women's Development, she has been a leading figure in the discussion of gender and culture. By attending with care and respect to the voices of women and girls, she has transformed our understanding of human psychology. Professor Gilligan also has a passion for social justice and a rich conception of what it means to be an ethical and responsible professional. All these qualities are manifest in Professor Gilligan's interactions with our students, whether she is teaching seminars on law and culture or working in our Lawyering Program to give first-year students an experiential and critical sense of the responsibilities of practice. Her permanent connection to the NYU School of Law and to NYU generally honors and enriches us all."

"I am thrilled to be joining the Law School and the larger NYU community on a permanent basis," said Professor Gilligan. "When Dean Sexton invited me as a visiting professor three years ago, I was struck by the creativity and brilliance of the faculty and students. Teaching with David Richards, Jerry Bruner and Peggy Davis has brought my work to a new level. I look forward to further collaboration with these scholars. My University Professorship also will allow me to work with Niobe Way at the Graduate School of Education, and Dean Stimpson and I are exploring ways in which I could contribute to the conversation in Arts and Science. The possibilities are incredibly exciting, and it's an honor to be a part of NYU."

"Professor Gilligan is internationally famous for her contributions to psychology, gender, and the study of moral reasoning," said Dean Stimpson, a leading feminist scholar. "We will benefit, not only from her achievements, but from her dazzling qualities of mind. She deserves the warmest and happiest of welcomes to the NYU community."

"Carol is a leading psychologist whose ground-breaking work and understanding of adolescent girls will be invaluable to our school as we train educators, counselors and researchers," said Dean Marcus. "Her research will help us develop better strategies for teaching and learning, classroom management, and a wide range of services that support children."

Following publication in 1982 of In a Different Voice, Professor Gilligan continued her exploration of psychological development in a variety of domains, including women's contributions to psychological theory and education; women and girls' experiences of psychotherapy; and the relational world of girls.

Her 1996 book, Between Voice and Silence: Women and Girls, Race and Relationship (with J. McLean Taylor and A. Sullivan), studied economically disadvantaged girls and their struggles to be heard and taken seriously.

Professor Gilligan's recent work includes the Harvard Project on Women's Psychology and Girls' Development, which she initiated, and Strengthening Healthy Resistance and Courage in Girls, a prevention project that also was expanded to include boys and men.

A summa cum laude graduate of Swarthmore College (B.A. 1958), Professor Gilligan earned a master's degree in clinical psychology from Radcliffe College in 1960 and a Ph.D. in social psychology from Harvard in 1964. She began teaching at Harvard with the psychologist Erik Erikson in 1967, and received tenure as a full professor in 1986. In 1997, Professor Gilligan was appointed to a newly endowed professorship at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, the Patricia Albjerg Graham Chair in Gender Studies, Harvard University's first position in gender studies.

Professor Gilligan is the recipient of many awards and honors including the prestigious Grawemeyer Award in Education, which honors achievements in fields not recognized by the Nobel prizes, such as education and music, and the Heinz Award, for her contributions to our knowledge of the human condition.

Professor Gilligan also has completed a new book, The Birth of Pleasure, to be published by Knopf in 2002.

03/05/01