The English Department mourns the loss of Susan Stanford Friedman, trailblazing scholar and program builder, former department chair, and generous mentor to many who are now leaders in the global study of literature. As a linguist, I was not in Susan’s inner circle, but I still benefitted from her leadership and commitment to fairness. I distinctly remember how, when I was an assistant professor, the department voted to use gift funds to pay for a one-semester research leave for junior faculty. One of the senior male professors in the department, who happend to sit next to me, spoke up and said the research leave should only be offered as a recruitment tool — there was no need to offer it to those who were already there. I was flabbergasted. Susan set him right in no uncertain terms. Why would you hold back resources from those who would be the future of the department? I didn’t know too much about chairing a department at the time, but I did know that we had a chair who sought to empower us junior people, and that felt good.
Read the full article at: https://english.wisc.edu/staff/friedman-susan-stanford/