News of the College Novemberautumn2006

Four Professors Named to Endowed Chairs

This fall, in consultation with the Committee on Advancement and Tenure, President Colin Diver named four faculty members to endowed chairs.

Michael Eugene Foat ’86 has been named the Thomas Lamb Eliot Associate Professor of Religion and the Humanities. Foat earned a master’s degree in theology from Harvard Divinity School and a Ph.D. at Brown University. Since joining the Reed faculty in 1996, he has taught the history of Christianity; his teaching and research have focused on contemplative theology and the varieties of asceticism in late antiquity.

William Greenleaf Eliot Jr. ’21 (1866–1956) created the Thomas Lamb Eliot Chair in Religion in 1953 in memory of his father. Thomas Lamb Eliot (1841–1936), a Unitarian minister, first suggested to Amanda and Simeon Reed that they found a “Reed Institute of lectures and art and music and museum,” and served as Reed regent (1911–25) and regent president (1911–20).

Noelwah R. Netusil was named Stanley H. Cohn Professor of Economics. Netusil joined the Reed faculty in 1990 and has since taught and conducted research with a focus on the intersection of economics and the environment. Her current research examines how property values are affected by proximity to environmental amenities such as open spaces. She is currently vice chair of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s economic advisory board.

Stanley H. Cohn ’37 established this chair in economics through a bequest. Cohn earned a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago in 1952, took several positions at government agencies—including the CIA and IMF, where he published research on the economy of Russia—and taught for 16 years at SUNY–Binghamton before retiring and teaching briefly at Reed.

Allen Neuringer, professor of psychology, has been named to the John D. MacArthur Chair. Neuringer graduated summa cum laude from Columbia College in 1962, earned a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1967, and joined the Reed faculty in 1970. Specializing in behavioral analyses, voluntary action, behavioral variability, self-control, and self-experimentation, Neuringer has served as principal investigator for several National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation grants and fellowships.

The MacArthur Chair at Reed was created in 1981 with a grant from the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

William Ray has been named to the John and Elizabeth Yeon Chair in the Humanities. Ray earned a Ph.D. in 1971 from the University of Chicago and taught for two years at SUNY–Plattsburgh before joining the Reed faculty in 1972. A specialist in French narrative, cultural theory, theories of reading, and aesthetic theory, Ray is the author of numerous articles and three books, most recently, The Logic of Culture. He is a past recipient of Reed’s Vollum Senior Faculty Award, as well as several outside fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Humanities Center, and the Camargo Foundation.

Norman Yeon ’37 bequeathed half of his estate to Reed to honor his parents with this chair. Yeon, a literature major, pursued graduate studies in fine arts at the Sorbonne, and in sociology at Columbia University. His father, a lumber magnate and civic figure, oversaw construction of the Columbia Gorge Scenic Highway and built the Yeon Building in downtown Portland.