University of Michigan Professor Edie Goldenberg, Margaret MacVicar's MIT roommate, will deliver the annual MacVicar Day lecture on Friday, Feb. 4. The talk follows the naming of MacVicar Fellows for 2000 at a luncheon in the President's House.
Each year starting in 1992, members of the faculty who are outstanding teachers of undergraduate students are selected as Margaret MacVicar Faculty Fellows for a 10-year period. Together the Fellows form a small academy of scholars committed to fine teaching and innovation in education.
Professor Goldenberg, who received the SB in political science from MIT in 1967, will speak at 2:30pm in Rm 6-120. Her topic will be "Where's the Rat in Undergraduate Education?" She has been at Michigan since 1974, serving as dean of the College of Literature, Science and the Arts from 1989-98. She has also been an MIT Corporation member since 1994.
"Every year, MIT's MacVicar Day is a way of drawing attention and honor to some of MIT's star teachers," said Dean of Students and Undergraduate Education Rosalind H. Williams. "This year, MacVicar Day will also draw attention to the 30th anniversary of the establishment of UROP -- a program founded by Margaret MacVicar which shows how well research and teaching can mutually support each other at MIT." Professor MacVicar was MIT's first dean of undergraduate education.
Following Professor Goldenberg's lecture, MacVicar Day will feature presentations by UROP students as well as by Professors Alexander H. Slocum, Arthur Steinberg, John M. Essigmann and Margery Resnick, all MacVicar Fellows. In addition, Dean Williams has asked all teachers to set aside 10 minutes of class time on MacVicar Day to discuss teaching and learning with their students.
"I hope that many undergraduates will join in these discussions and will attend these events. They are all intended to remind us of our core identity as a community of teachers and learners," she said.
The fellowship program was established to honor the memory of Dean MacVicar, who died in 1991. Professor Goldenberg, who roomed with Dean MacVicar in McCormick Hall, spoke at her funeral. She remembered raising a boxer puppy together in their dorm room and exploring New England in Dean MacVicar's old Buick, all the while forming a lasting friendship.
"Margaret was an educator, an innovator, a catalyst, a mentor," Professor Goldenberg said. "She was also a wonderful human being -- full of life, full of energy and full of fun."
After graduating from MIT, Professor Goldenberg earned the MA (1968) and PhD (1974) from Stanford University, both in political science. She has been at Michigan since then, with one break to work for the federal government. She joined the Office of Personnel Management in 1978 and headed the office's Civil Service Reform Evaluation Management Division from 1979-81.
Before becoming a dean, Professor Goldenberg was director of Michigan's Institute of Public Policy Studies from 1987-89. A professor of political science and public policy since 1985, she is a member of the National Academy of Public Administration.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on January 26, 2000.
