University of Puget Sound announces faculty appointments to endowed positions

Professors will deepen conversations, research, and curriculum about bioethics, artificial intelligence, and more

The Office of the Provost has announced appointments of four endowed professorships starting in fall 2022. The multiyear positions represent some of University of Puget Sound’s 10 endowed professorships, which support outstanding teaching and scholarship with the goal of enriching the campus’s academic life. Candidates were selected by committee before being recommended to President Isiaah Crawford for confirmation. The appointees come from diverse disciplines, running the gamut from English and business to science, religion, and philosophy, and will work to deepen conversations on campus about bioethics, artificial intelligence, leadership, and decolonizing literature.

Susan Resneck Pierce Professor of Humanities and Honors

Distinguished Professor of English Priti Joshi was named Susan Resneck Pierce Professor of Humanities and Honors for a five-year term. In this role, Joshi will develop new and expand existing curriculum with proposed courses in books as human artifacts, decolonizing and diversifying books for young children, borders, and translation.

Joshi joined the Puget Sound faculty in 1999. She recently was named the James Dolliver National Endowment for the Humanities Distinguished Teaching Professor, alongside Professor of Sociology and Anthropology Monica DeHart, and has served as director of Puget Sound’s PacRim Program. Joshi is the author of Empire News: The Anglo-Indian Press Writes India and is the recipient of the M.C. Lang Fellowship from the Rare Book School, as well as Puget Sound’s John Lantz Sabbatical Fellowship and Martin Nelson Summer Research grant. Joshi teaches courses on travel writing, food and culture, and Victorian literature.

John B. Magee Chair in Science and Values in the Honors Program

Professor of Religion, Spirituality, and Society Suzanne Holland has accepted re-appointment as the John B. Magee Chair in Science and Values in the Honors Program for a five-year term. The Magee Chair promotes intellectual exchange and enhances the university’s standards of academic excellence through significant research and publication. During her tenure, Holland will continue to teach and cultivate links between Puget Sound and the local health care community.

Holland is a bioethicist who focuses on the intersection of ethics, medicine, religion, and genetics. She has been active in national and international conversations on issues raised by stem cell research, assisted reproduction, genomics, biobanking, health care access, and just research practices. Holland joined the faculty in 1997 and received the President’s Teaching Award in 2008. In addition to her home department, she teaches courses in the Science, Technology, and Society Program and in gender studies. She is the recipient of several foundation and federal research grants, and has published extensively on science and ethics, including the book Achieving Justice in Genomic Translation: Re-Thinking the Pathway to Benefit.

George Frederick Jewett Professor

Professor of Business and Leadership Jeff Matthews has accepted re-appointment for a five-year term as the George Frederick Jewett Professor. The Jewett Professorship was established in 1980 as Puget Sound’s first fully endowed faculty chair. Since its inception, it has allowed the School of Business and Leadership to hire senior faculty members and support the creation of new courses, enhancing Puget Sound’s reputation as a nationally ranked liberal arts and sciences institution.

Matthews joined the faculty in 2000 and has served as director of the Business Leadership Program since 2005. He twice received the Thomas A. Davis Teaching Award and received the President’s Teaching Award in 2009. Matthews is the author of several books, most recently Colin Powell: Imperfect Patriot and The Art of Command: Military Leadership from George Washington to Colin Powell, which is required reading for students at the U.S. Army’s Command and General Staff College.

James Dolliver National Endowment for the Humanities Distinguished Teaching Professors

Professors of Philosophy Justin Tiehen and Ariela Tubert will jointly hold a Dolliver Professorship focused on the intersection of the humanities and artificial intelligence. The Dolliver Professorship is a three-year appointment, allowing faculty to organize seminars, invite guest speakers, and bring visiting faculty to campus with the goal of enriching and refreshing coursework and cocurricular opportunities.

Tiehen and Tubert’s Dolliver Professorship will explore a variety of topics, including AI-generated art, ethics, privacy, and algorithmic bias. The faculty seminar planned for the first year of the professorship will engage participants in discussions around the ethical, social, and existential issues arising from artificial intelligence and the ways AI can contribute to work in the humanities. In addition to their teaching and scholarship, Tiehen and Tubert plan to co-author a manuscript about the intersection of AI and issues of rationality, creation, and value.

Tiehen joined Puget Sound’s faculty in 2007 and specializes in the philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and the philosophy of cognitive science. Tubert joined the university’s teaching staff in 2006. Her research is in the areas of moral philosophy and action theory. Both are widely published and have received numerous teaching awards, fellowships, and grants.