A member of the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ faculty since 2004, Professor of Environmental Studies Holly Ewing is the new Christian A. Johnson Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies.

Endowed by the Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation, now the Endeavor Foundation, this chair celebrates the central role of interdisciplinary studies in the liberal arts and recognizes a faculty member who has made transformative contributions to interdisciplinary teaching, learning, and scholarship.

Holly Ewing explains what the appointment means to her:

I was completely surprised to receive an envelope in the mail with the news of my appointment to the Christian A. Johnson Professorship â€” I had no idea how or when it passed from person to person. It meant a great deal to me to be able to share this letter with my family last Thanksgiving by physically handing it to my parents in a hospital room in Oklahoma during a period when my father was gravely ill and in and out of the hospital.

Over my years at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, faculty whose work I greatly respect — Jane Costlow, Michael Jones, and Rebecca Herzig — have held the professorship, so I am honored to be named the next holder of it.

Since so much of the expansion of knowledge has been happening in interdisciplinary spaces that we did not previously consider, it seems especially fitting that there is a professorship that acknowledges that work and the opportunities that exist in our scholarship, teaching, and even the organization of the academy.

Working with students, colleagues, and collaborators in these spaces and thinking about how they are structured and how we can create in them is some of the most satisfying work I do, so I am grateful to the Endeavor Foundation for the recognition of its importance.

About Holly Ewing

Holly Ewing uses the college’s Maine location to great advantage in her research and field courses. Her courses provide the natural science core of the Program in Environmental Studies, the college’s most interdisciplinary major.

Her research, often with student collaborators, investigates the interconnections among atmospheric, terrestrial, and aquatic ecosystems — such as how ecosystems in Acadia National Park respond to air pollution, or the processes of algae growth in Lake Auburn, the area’s source of drinking water.

In partnership with faculty colleague Rebecca Herzig, she has worked to improve faculty procedures for tenure and promotion reviews by regularizing the process for all faculty, better accommodating a diversity of ways people are appointed, and recognizing the role and contributions of interdisciplinary work. The recent chair of the Program in Environmental Studies, Ewing also is a member of the Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies.

Rebecca Herzig presents her professorship lecture on Dec. 2 (Phyllis Graber Jensen/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College)

Rebecca Herzig marks her appointment to an endowed professorship at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ with a lecture at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 2, in the Keck Classroom, Room G52 of Pettengill Hall, 4 Andrews Road (Alumni Walk).

The Christian A. Johnson Professor in Interdisciplinary Studies, Herzig offers a talk titled Knowledge Incarnate: Feminism, Science and the Problem of Suffering.

The lecture is open to the public at no cost. A reception follows immediately in Pettengill’s Perry Atrium. For more information, please call 207-786-8371.

Herzig is a historian of science whose research focuses on the relationships between technology, race and gender in the United States.

Her book Plucked: A History of Hair Removal in America, to be published by NYU Press in January 2015, examines techniques that Americans have used to remove their own hair, and the array of social forces — including beliefs about beauty and self-determination — that create expectations about hair and hair removal.

Herzig received a National Science Foundation grant in 2008 to support her research into cosmetic applications of studies of the human genome, including gene-based hair retardation.

In 2005, Herzig published Suffering for Science: Reason and Sacrifice in Modern America (Rutgers University Press), exploring the rise of an ethic of “self-sacrifice” in American science. The book describes how supposedly rational scientists came to embrace a culture of toil, danger and even lethal dismemberment.

Co-edited with Evelynn M. Hammonds, Herzig’s second book was The Nature of Difference: Sciences of Race in the United States from Jefferson to Genomics (The MIT Press, 2009). This collection addresses changing scientific studies of human variation.

Herzig is chair of the Program in Women and Gender Studies at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, where she has taught for more than 15 years. She has won numerous awards for her work, including the college’s Kroepsch Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Herzig received her doctorate in the history and social study of science and technology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her bachelor’s degree in American cultural and environmental studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

The Johnson Professorship, supported by an endowment established by the Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation, recognizes a faculty member who has made transformative contributions to interdisciplinary studies.