K-School Tenures Three New Faculty Members

Just a week after snagging noted sociologist William Julius Wilson from the University of Chicago, the Kennedy School of Government yesterday announced three new prominent faculty appointments.

Sociologist Christopher Jencks of Northwestern University, anthropologist Katherine Newman of Columbia University and labor economist George Borjas of the University of California at San Diego will all join Wilson at the Kennedy School's Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy in the fall of 1996.

"Borjas, Jencks, Newman and Wilson are academic all-stars," Dean of the Kennedy School Joseph S. Nye said in a press release. "Together with our existing faculty, the school and the Wiener Center now [have] one of the finest groups of people ever assembled to tackle the extraordinary challenges of poverty, crime, poor health and economic and social deprivation."

Jencks taught at Harvard's Graduate School of Education from 1969 to 1973, according to the press release. His many publications include the book Inequality, which was awarded a prize as the best book in sociology for 1974, and The Homeless, published by the Harvard University Press in 1994.

Newman has written extensively about the urban working poor, including Falling From Grace, a book exploring the cultural and familial consequences of corporate downsizing.

Recently she has studied black and Latino youth struggling in the low-wage labor market in Harlem, the press release said.

Borjas, an expert in the impact of immigration on labor markets, has served as an advisor to California Governor Pete Wilson. He has also written a textbook on Labor Economics, according to the release.

The Kennedy School's recent success in recruiting Wilson from Chicago may have been a factor in attracting Jencks, Newman and Borjas, according to Kennedy School spokesperson Steve Singer said.

"Each seemed to be excited about this critical mass of people to work with," Singer said.

Julie B. Wilson, director of Wiener Center and secretary of the Kennedy School faculty, also agreed that the recent addition of a scholar of Wilson's caliber helped convince the others.

These appointments come in the wake of an anonymous $5 million pledge to support faculty and research at the Weiner Center. The donation will also fund the merger of the Wiener Center and the Program in Criminal Justice Policy.

According to Julie Wilson, the new appointments are expected to create a hotbed of research into social problems.

"I think we should look for some superb social policy from the Weiner Center," she said.