High honor for two faculty members
Two Notre Dame faculty members—Declan Kiberd and Dianne Pinderhughes—were elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, joining 25 others from Notre Dame in one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious learned societies and independent policy research centers. Kiberd, the Donald and Marilyn Keough Professor of Irish Studies and professor of English, is a major figure in the field of Irish studies. Pinderhughes, chair of the Department of Africana Studies and a professor in the Department of Political Science, analyzes racial, ethnic, and gender issues associated with political participation in the American political system, and in comparative perspective. Since its founding during the American Revolution by John Adams, James Bowdoin, John Hancock, and other scholar-patriots, the academy has elected leading “thinkers and doers” from each generation, including George Washington and Benjamin Franklin in the 18th century, Daniel Webster and Ralph Waldo Emerson in the 19th, and Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill in the 20th.