Celebrating its fiftieth anniversary, The Chronicle of Higher Education—a leading source of news for the college and university set—is reprinting vintage cover stories. The June 24 issue reprised the July 6, 1994, edition, on which “Penn’s Drew Gilpin Faust, Historian” was featured, for a story on “Policing Scholars’ Ethics” (click on the arrow to see the full page).
As the Chronicle explained, in her capacity as head of the American Historical Association’s professional division, Faust “found herself amid more than a few bitter debates within a newly diverse membership,” prompting her to observe, “No one is happy.” The issues then concerned plagiarism, sexual harassment, racial and age discrimination, and disputes over hiring and promotions. From the vantage point of 2016’s especially hot dog days of summer—and her ensuing service as dean of the Radcliffe Institute and then president of Harvard—those problems must sound familiar, albeit smaller in scale than those reaching Faust in Mass. Hall. Perhaps the sentiment she expressed then might prompt a wan smile of recognition today. One awaits the Chronicle’s centennial-year retrospective with interest.
