South Asian Studies transitions from period of 'crisis'

Though many think cutbacks across the University result from the economic recession, the South Asia Studies department has shrunk to about one third of its former size due to the combination of the struggling economy and a period of departmental transition.

When South Asia Studies professor Michael Meister arrived at Penn in 1976, he said the department employed “10 or 12 people” as tenured or tenure-track professors. Currently, it includes just one tenured professor. Two faculty members are associated professors with tenure in other departments.

“We’re the smallest department in the Humanities except for Slavic Languages,” with the highest ratio of untenured to tenured faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences, department Chairman Daud Ali said

This “crisis,” Ali added, has arisen due to changes in the faculty which “seem to have coincided with the recession.”

During the 1980s and 1990s, College deans focused on recruiting scholars for the “fairly big program” who taught other disciplines, too. Though they recruited strong faculty members, Meister explained, new hires were not necessarily committed to developing South Asia Studies because their primary appointments were in other departments.

Ultimately, however, “there was probably a 25-year period when [we] had a good program, [with] people getting more and more senior,” Meister said.

According to Ali, however, the department size has decreased because it suffered “a tremendous amount of attrition” in the past five to six years.

Ali’s appointment last summer boosted the department’s number of tenured faculty members from four to five when he arrived at Penn in August 2009, a “good sign of the degree to which Penn supported the South Asia Studies program,” Meister said.

Weeks after Ali arrived, however, then-Chairman Aditya Behl died unexpectedly.

According to members of the South Asia Studies faculty, Behl’s sudden death was a loss not only on a personal and scholarly level, but also on a departmental level.

Since this “tragic event,” Meister noted, the department has not been able to replace Behl.

Nevertheless, Meister said, the department is currently conducting a search for a new standing professor of any level, so the scholar Penn recruits could get on the tenure track.

This search was first proposed three years ago to complement the late Behl’s position as the “next necessary search,” Meister explained, but was stalled due to University-wide hiring freezes over the past two years.

This year, the search was authorized because it “was considered an important appointment … to keep the program healthy,” Meister added.

In addition to seeking senior faculty members, South Asia Studies is also focusing on its other professors. According to Meister, the department has employed some temporary lecturers and scholars whose appointments can be renewed indefinitely.

“We are building a new generation,” he said.

College junior and South Asia Studies major Nicky Singh said the department’s small size restricts the courses and research opportunities available to students.

Given this limitation, Singh said, the department’s current search for new faculty members is “a tremendous idea [that] would really help increase the variety of courses.”

Yale University features a sizeable South Asia Studies program, governed by a council of 54 faculty members. At Yale, undergraduates pursue South Asia Studies as a second major.

Though Harvard University does not offer a major in South Asia studies, the South Asia Initiative coordinates scholarly exchanges between professors and students at Harvard and prominent scholars from the area, according to the program’s website.

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