December 14 2007
ILR’s Jefferson Cowie will serve as a West Campus house dean
President Skorton names Cowie and cites his “rapport with students”
It takes a special kind of faculty member to serve as a house professor and dean in Cornell University’s West Campus House System. ILR faculty are among the university’s finest teachers, mentors and scholars, so it’s no surprise that one of them has been tapped to take on this critical role for the newest residential house..
Jefferson Cowie, Associate Professor of Labor History, will serve as house professor and dean for Keeton House, the fourth residential facility on West Campus. Cowie and his family will be moving to Keeton House when it opens in August 2008.
Keeton House, like other West Campus houses, is named for a legendary Cornell professor, the late biologist William T. Keeton. The goal of the West Campus House System is to create an environment that more closely links residential life to the academic mission of the university.
In announcing Cowie’s appointment as house professor and dean, Cornell University President David Skorton said, “His teaching expertise and his rapport with students will be huge assets to Keeton House and to the West Campus House System.”
“I’m thrilled to be a part of the tremendous undertaking of the West Campus House System,” Cowie says. “I see this position as a powerful opportunity to help lay the foundation for integrating intellectual engagement and residential life in new and exciting ways. I look forward to working with the house professors, the West Campus Council, and above all, the future students of Keeton House.”
Cowie is the recipient of Cornell and national teaching honors and research awards as well as several prestigious fellowships. His interests focus on workers and the problem of social class in the postwar United States as well as issues in international and comparative history, especially with regard to Latin America.
He is the author of Capital Moves: RCA's Seventy-Year Quest for Cheap Labor, which received the Philip Taft Prize for the Best Book in Labor History for 2000, and co-editor of Beyond the Ruins: The Meanings of Deindustrialization. His latest work focusing on a history of American workers in the 1970s is scheduled for release next year.
Related Destinations
Professor Jefferson Cowie named Keeton House dean (Cornell Chronicle)