Dhingra to chair sociology department this fall

 

Professor of Sociology Pawan Dhingra, who joined the Tufts community last fall, will assume the position of chair of the Department of Sociology beginning in the fall of 2013. Dhingra accepted the official offer to serve as chair last February but opted to spend his first year on campus teaching classes, he said.

Dhingra will replace Susan Ostrander, who has served as interim department chair for two years.

This year has served as a transition year for Dhingra, who said he has used the time to acquaint himself with the university and his department.

“It’s been overall a process of gradually increasing familiarity and connection,” he said. “I’ve been active in the department in various ways and also active with other endeavors outside of the department.”

Dhingra taught three courses this year, including Introduction to Sociology both last fall and this spring, as well as a senior seminar this spring. He will continue to teach the introductory class next fall.

“I am really impressed by the level of engagement by the students: the kind of questions they ask, how well they grapple with the conversations and push the conversations forward,” Dhingra said.

Aside from teaching, Dhingra also chaired the search for a new hire in his department this year.

“I got a better understanding through that of the department and its priorities, what people like and don’t like,” he said.

Dhingra added that he was also involved in one of the steering committees for the university-wide strategic plan, Tufts: The Next 10 Years.

“[Dhingra has] come in, and he’s made an immediate difference, just as a regular member of the faculty,” Dean of Academic Affairs for Arts and Sciences James Glaser said. “He will provide several years of strong leadership for the department. And the department’s got a lot of excellent talent.”

Dhingra hopes in his new role as chair to address the needs of both department faculty and students.

“The goals for me as a chair are to facilitate the goals of the faculty in the department ... to make sure both that the faculty are able to do what they want to do and pursue their goals [and to make their lives] better, easier, and helping make sure that our curriculum is as strong as it can be to serve the students,” he said.

Dhingra came to Tufts after several years in academia. After receiving his Ph.D. in sociology from Cornell University in 2002, Dhingra served as an assistant professor at Bucknell University from 2001 to 2003 and at Oberlin College from 2003 to 2012.

“We are very pleased that last year the deans at the request of our department agreed to a national search to hire a new faculty member at the full professor level who would serve as the next chair of our department — and even more pleased that Professor Pawan Dhingra subsequently accepted our offer to take that position,” Professor of Sociology and Interim Chair of the Department of Sociology Susan Ostrander told the Daily in an email.

Dhingra’s experience as a museum curator at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., from 2011 to 2012 was highly attractive to the search committee, according to Glaser. Dhingra co-curated an exhibition titled, “Beyond Bollywood,” which is scheduled to open at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History at the end of this year.

“We were looking for somebody who puts it all together in the Tufts way,” Glaser said. “We’re looking for people who are going to be first-rate scholar-teachers, and Professor Dhingra was exciting to us because we saw that in him.”

The committee was also searching for an individual who was prepared to invest themselves fully in further strengthening the department, according to Glaser.

“There’s a lot of talent in the department, and we’re eager to make sure that there’s somebody in place there who can help nurture that talent,” he said.

Members of the Tufts faculty have already made a positive impression on Dhingra.

“Overall, I’m really taken by the faculty that we have, and that’s one key thing,” he said. “They’re smart, they’re motivated, they’re very committed to the students.”