Clark University has announced the new recipients of endowed positions in sociology, economics, history, and the Becker School of Design & Technology, including two new professorships in Jewish studies and interactive media arts.
“We are pleased to recognize these accomplished faculty members, whose work demonstrates their dedication to teaching, research, and service to Clark,” Provost John Magee said. “We are also extremely grateful for the philanthropy that allows our faculty and students to flourish.”
Shelly Tenenbaum, longtime professor of sociology, is the inaugural holder of the Betty J. Singer ’71 Professorship in Jewish Studies, established through a gift of just over $2 million from the estate of the engaged and dedicated Clark alumna. Her gift builds on over four decades of intentional philanthropy to the University, which included unrestricted funds, scholarships, support for Clark U Hillel, and contributions to the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.
Tenenbaum’s research on ethnic enterprise, mutual aid, gender, education, and identity intersects the broad areas of sociology of American Jews and historical sociology. Her 1993 book, “A Credit to their Community: Jewish Loan Societies in the United States, 1880-1945,” explores the relationship between immigrant Jewish credit networks and ethnic enterprise. In 1994, Tenenbaum co-edited “Feminist Perspectives on Jewish Studies,” an anthology that critically evaluates the impact of feminist scholarship across Jewish studies.
Terrasa Ulm, associate professor in the Becker School of Design & Technology, has been named the inaugural holder of the E.C.A. and Mary Becker Professorship, which was established by a $2 million gift from the trustees of the former Becker College. The gift recognizes Clark’s instrumental role in keeping Becker College’s top-ranked interactive media arts and technology program in Worcester in 2021, when the college closed. This new endowed professorship is named in honor of Edward Carl Anton Becker and his wife, Mary Charlotte Becker, who founded the two-year Becker Business College in Worcester in 1887, the same year Clark was established.
Ulm has been an emergent media artist, game developer, and professor of interactive media for over 15 years. Their work and practice focus on games for change, the impact of artificial intelligence on new media, and XR development. As both designer and software developer, Ulm has developed game titles in the “serious” and experimental games space for PC, mobile, and virtual reality. Their most recent personal art centers on interactive, fictive, live-action installations and intimate AI avatar moments.
Junfu Zhang, professor of economics, has been appointed to a three-year term as the John T. Croteau, M.A. ’32, Ph.D. ’35, Endowed Chair in Economics. The position was first established in 2009 through a planned gift and was held by Wayne Gray, professor emeritus of economics, until his retirement in 2025. The late John Croteau was a longtime professor at Notre Dame and several other prestigious universities, and was a prodigious scholar who authored books on a variety of topics in economics.
Zhang is currently the department chair in economics and specializes in applied microeconomics, with a focus on urban and regional economics. He has also served as president of the Chinese Economists Society and as a guest editor for academic journals.
Nina Kushner, associate professor of history, has been appointed Jacob and Frances L. Hiatt Professor of History, first established in 1963. The Hiatts were also the benefactors of the Hiatt Center for Urban Education and the Frances L. Hiatt School of Psychology at Clark. Jacob, who died in 2001, earned his master’s degree in psychology from Clark in 1946 and was a life member of the Board of Trustees.
Kushner, co-chair of the Department of History, is a specialist in early modern and 18th-century European social and cultural history, with an emphasis on France, women, gender, and the history of sexuality. Her book “Erotic Exchanges: The World of Elite Prostitution in Eighteenth-Century Paris” (2013) used police and judicial records as well as contemporary commentaries to reconstruct the demimonde of 18th-century Paris.
