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SBS Faculty Recognized for Outstanding Accomplishments

This year’s Faculty Convocation ceremony on October 2, which marked the official installation of Robert Holub as Chancellor, also featured the presentation of the Award for Outstanding Accomplishments in Research and Creative Activity to seven nationally recognized faculty members. Three of them, Naomi Gerstel (sociology) Sheldon Goldman (political science) and Robert N. Pollin (economics) are members of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences.

Naomi Gerstel has reshaped scientific and public discourse on families and work. A pioneer in the study of work/family issues, she has become one of the most prominent scholars in her field since coming to UMass Amherst in 1978. Gerstel’s research focuses on the work/family connection and its many complications, including issues of gender, race, ethnicity, and class. She has examined care to relatives and friends, work schedules, the Family and Medical Leave Act, and the effect of marriage on social ties, among other topics. Her current research includes the politics of time, focusing on paid work and families.

Gerstel has been a continually productive scholar publishing influential research in many academic journals, including the Journal of Marriage and Family and Gender & Society. Her work has been reprinted widely and she has also published a monograph, edited three other books, and published in outlets for the educated public. She has succeeded at bringing her research to the attention of policymakers and has shared her expertise with the Contemporary Council on Families and the National Council on Families. Currently her research is supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. She is an active editor, reviewer, committee member, and a respected mentor of many PhD students.

Education: BA, sociology, New York University, 1970; PhD, Columbia University, 1978. Significant Honors: Visiting Scholar, Russell Sage Foundation, 1993-1994; Rosabeth Moss Kanter International Award for Research Excellence in Families, 2005; American Sociological Association Award for Distinguished Article, 2008.

Sheldon Goldman has built an extraordinary career of scholarly achievement focused on the judicial selection process. His scholarship spans eleven presidencies: from a 1965 article on the characteristics of Eisenhower and Kennedy appointees to the lower federal courts to an article published this year on expectations for President Obama’s appointments. Over the decades he earned a reputation as one of the finest scholars ever of public law.

Goldman has written numerous influential articles in law journals and professional political science journals. He has authored many book chapters and contributed to several encyclopedias. He has written 12 books and monographs, including Picking Federal Judges, which became an instant classic when published by Yale University Press in 1997. Over the years, his knowledge and good judgment brought demand for his commentary and analysis from The New York Times, NPR, Time magazine, Bill Moyers’ Journal, and scores of other news outlets. Professor Goldman has taught at UMass Amherst since 1965 and is a longstanding student favorite, as evidenced by his multiple teaching awards.

Education: BA, political science, New York University, 1961; MA, Harvard University, 1964; PhD, Harvard University, 1965. Significant Honors: Picking Federal Judges selected for best book on law and courts, American Political Science Association, 1997; Certificate of Recognition, National Phi Beta Kappa Society, 2001.

Robert Pollin’s research centers on macroeconomics, conditions for low-wage workers in the United States and globally, the analysis of financial markets, and the economics of building a clean-energy economy. He is the founding co-director of the UMass Amherst Political Economy Research Institute (PERI). The institute promotes human and ecological well-being through its original research. Pollin’s work advances PERI’s goal of translating research into workable policy proposals that are capable of improving life on our planet today and in the future.

Pollin came to the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1998. He is the author or co-author of five books, including most recently, A Measure of Fairness: The Economics of Living Wages and Minimum Wages in the United States (2008). He has edited six books and published 33 scholarly articles and well over 100 book chapters, reports, popular articles, opinion pieces, and reviews. As a lecturer, he is in great demand nationwide. He has worked with the United Nations on policies to promote decent employment expansion and poverty reduction in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa. He has also worked with the Joint Economic Committee of the US Congress and as a member of the Capital Formation Sub-Council of the US Competiveness Policy Council.

Education: BA, history, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1972; MA, New School for Social Research, 1979; PhD, New School for Social Research, 1982. Significant Honors: University of California Regents’ Fellowship, 1985; Consultant, Joint Economic Committee, U.S. Congress, 1987-1989.

For more about the Convocation, including video, click here.

October 8, 2009