MESSAGE FROM THE DIRECTOR

Susan C. Karant-Nunn Ph.D. Early Modern European History Indiana University Author of The Reformation of Ritual

The view through the round window Desert Harvest, April 2008

   THE SECRETS OF SPRINGTIME! There is much excitement in the Division and the Department of History next door, but I can’t tell you about it!  Oh, I can put the cause in a general category for you: a six-member search committee seeking to make the first permanent appointment to the Heiko A. Oberman Chair in Late Medieval and Reformation History has nominated finalists to the History Department, which has voted to bring those finalists to campus for interviews. We are permitted to do this despite the widespread discouragement of hiring anybody at all in the midst of the current dire economic downturn in the State of Arizona. The reason for our privilege is that we raised the money.  To put this fact another way: you have given the money to the Oberman Endowment. Your extraordinary generosity, along with a three-year endowment interest matching grant from the Provost’s office, has made it possible for us to proceed, even as we strive to raise the still-lacking half million dollars to complete this fund. At the moment of completion, the Oberman Research Collection will pass entirely to the UA Libraries.
   When you receive this, and intermittently throughout the month of April, some of the world’s leading scholars in this field will be coming to campus. This is a magnificent spring, one that we and all our donors have yearned for! I cannot reveal more. Yet this armor of confidentiality has its chinks. Those of you who live in Tucson are welcome to come to each candidate’s research presentation. Call 621-1284 to find out when and where each of these will take place.
   Soon, very soon, we shall be able to announce the name of the person appointed to the Oberman Chair—one of two hundred such chairs that President Robert Shelton envisions in the UA’s future.  Ours is about to be reality.

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   It is no secret, however, that Danielle Thu has consented to join the Division’s Board of Advisors. She is the daughter and stepdaughter respectively of the late Ora DeConcini Martin and Morris Martin. Thereby another distinguished member of this illustrious family continues its support of our program. Danielle brings her personal expertise in education and business and her enthusiasm for the UA.