The Value of Curiosity: Meet Dickinson’s Newest Endowed Chairs
The three newest endowed faculty chairs at Dickinson are (from left): Michael Beevers, Ebru Kongar and Jennifer Blyth. Photo composite by Dan Loh.
Three faculty members named to donor-established positions
by MaryAlice Bitts-Jackson
A musician who’s tracing the entangled histories of Irish racialization and American minstrelsy. An environmental expert who studies global conflict’s interactions with natural resources and climate change. An economist who’s connecting gender inequality to global economic systems.
These are Dickinson’s newest chairholders—esteemed faculty members who’ve earned one of the highest academic honors the college bestows. Each one helps place a passion for discovery at the heart of the Dickinson experience. And one of them exemplifies a new kind of faculty chair at Dickinson.
What’s an endowed chair?
An endowed chair is a permanent, donor-established fund supporting a highly engaged faculty member undertaking ambitious and promising work. Unlike endowed chairs at most institutions, which fund only faculty research, Dickinson’s endowed chairs support research, teaching and mentorship.
The idea is that when a highly engaged faculty member pursues a project they’re passionate about, that energy radiates into the student experience and across the college. New knowledge emerges. Innovative initiatives, courses, projects and pedagogical approaches emerge. Departments gain prestige and momentum, and the college fosters a center of intellectual gravity that endures long after the chair is established.
The three honorees
The college’s newest chairholders, announced during this past spring’s faculty meeting, are Michael Beevers, professor of environmental studies; Ebru Kongar, professor of economics; and Jennifer Blyth, professor of music.
Beevers is the latest recipient of the John J. '60 and Ann Conser Curley '63 Chair in Global Education, established in 2011. A former Peace Corps volunteer and consultant for the United Nations Environment Programme, he specializes in global environmental politics with an emphasis on the connections among natural resources, security, conflict and peace. The faculty chair will support research on the importance of conflict sensitivity in climate financing and the green transition as well as the writing of a new book focused on policy diffusion in environmental peacebuilding. Beevers plans to involve students in his research and to offer students opportunities to connect with experts around the world.
Kongar is the A. Lee Fritschler Professor of Public Policy, established in 2003 by Dickinson’s Board of Trustees and named for a former Dickinson president and professor who also served in the U. S. Department of Education. An associate editor of the journal Feminist Economics, she examines the relationships between gender inequality and macroeconomic developments, and she brings those questions about equity and public policy into her teaching. Kongar encourages students to think critically about how economic policy is health policy and how it affects the well-being of different groups. Her students learn to evaluate methods to reduce gender and intersecting inequalities and promote the well-being of all people.
Blyth is the inaugural Neil B. Weissman Chair in the Liberal Arts, a five-year chair supporting a discrete project in the liberal arts and sciences. Exploring the friction between racialization of the Irish in the U.S. and U.S. minstrel shows, her work will result in a revised First-Year Seminar and a long-term performance project bringing to light the ongoing legacy of Blackface minstrelsy.
"I hope to expose and ask audience members to question the process of knowledge creation and the construction of history where representations of race are shaped by powerful commercial, ideological and social forces," she says. "These are prescient conversations to have, given the current climate and accusations associated with rewriting history."
The long and short of it
The Curley and Fritschler chairs are long-term appointments, appointed by Dickinson’s Board of Trustees and traditionally held by one faculty member until retirement. The Weissman chair, introduced during the past academic year, is a rotating position, tailored to the often-episodic nature of faculty research.This kind of position is held by a faculty member for only a few years, as they work on a discrete project.
When a temporary chair is established, the college sends out a call for faculty prospectuses, and a special committee selects the honoree.
“It’s a little like applying for a grant,” says Renée Cramer, provost and dean of the college, noting that as outside grants become scarcer and more competitive in some fields, this support is more valuable than ever.
The Weissman chair is the second rotating chair to be established at Dickinson. The first, the Kalaris Chair in the History of Science, was awarded to Professor of English Claire Seiler in 2025.
Both varieties of chairs help nurture a culture of academic discovery and innovation on campus, Cramer notes. They also both benefit professor-educators, the students they teach and the academic life of the greater college community.
"Curiosity is one of our core values, and when faculty engage in research, they are living that value in action,” she says.
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Published August 21, 2026