|
Winner of the Robert L. Kindrick–CARA
Award for Outstanding Service to Medieval Studies
The Award for Outstanding Service to Medieval
Studies is presented each year by CARA, the Medieval Academy's
Committee on Centers and Regional Associations, to recognize
leadership, innovative ideas, and service to the Academy and
to medieval studies in general. The recipients of this award
have made a difference in medieval studies and continue to
do so, year after year, often behind the scenes, not attracting
a great deal of attention to themselves but, rather, to their
accomplishments. Without this corps of dedicated medievalists,
the work and effectiveness of the Medieval Academy would be
greatly diminished, and it is for this reason that CARA instituted
this award and each year presents it to a distinguished medievalist
who has made an extraordinary contribution to medieval studies
specifically in the area of service.
The 2005 Robert L. Kindrick–CARA Award
for Outstanding Service to Medieval Studies is given to Maryanne
Kowaleski, Professor of History at Fordham University. As
a scholar she is respected internationally for her archival
research on medieval economic history, which focuses on ports,
trade, and shipping. Her Local Markets and Regional Trade
in Medieval Exeter (published by Cambridge University Press
in 1995) is justly celebrated as the most thorough analysis
of a medieval English urban economy. Kowaleski is also well
known as a historian of medieval women, having edited, with
Mary Erler, two important collections of essays, Women and
Power in the Middle Ages (University of Georgia Press, 1988)
and Gendering the Master Narrative: Women and Power in the
Middle Ages (Cornell University Press, 2003). Just as importantly,
Kowaleski is treasured by her many students at Fordham as
a distinguished graduate adviser and immensely popular undergraduate
teacher. She was named Fordham's Graduate Teacher of the Year,
in 1990, and Undergraduate Teacher of the Year in the Humanities,
in 1995; and in 2003 she was given the Award for Distinguished
Contribution to Graduate Teaching and Service.
Seldom has a medievalist so accomplished as
both a teacher and a scholar dedicated so much time and energy
to service, especially so early in her career. As director
of medieval studies, Kowaleski has made the Fordham program
into one of the most distinguished in the country, developing
its research fellows program for visiting medievalists and
helping to organize Fordham's highly successful annual medieval
studies conferences since 1985. Beyond Fordham—where
she is known as the voice of medieval studies, giving it a
highly valued position among university administrators—she
has contributed to the Medieval Academy in many capacities,
including serving on its nominating committee, which she also
chaired for the 2004 election, and on the executive committee
of CARA. Her hard work on both the program and local arrangements
committees planning the Academy's 2002 annual meeting in New
York were instrumental in its success. She fulfilled several
crucial responsibilities, such as organizing graduate student
assistants, helping to establish the meeting Web site at Fordham,
and handling complicated financial matters.
Kowaleski is noted as an indefatigable organizer
whose skills have contributed to other conferences and organizations
as well. At the Kalamazoo International Medieval Congress
she regularly organizes entire series of panels on topics
such as town and country in the Middle Ages, and over the
last two decades she has been instrumental in shaping the
programs of the triennial Anglo-American Seminar on the Medieval
Economy and Society. If further evidence of her generosity
and reputation for thoroughness is necessary, she has graciously
agreed to coordinate planning for the consortium of New York
City institutions hosting the biennial meeting of the New
Chaucer Society in 2006, even though she is not a Chaucerian.
A wonderful example of leadership in developing,
organizing, promoting, and sponsoring medieval studies locally,
nationally, and internationally, Maryanne Kowaleski is a scholar
and colleague of exceptional quality and a tireless, generous,
and successful advocate for medieval studies in all ways and
at all levels. We are delighted to recognize these great contributions
with the 2005 Robert L. Kindrick–CARA Award for Outstanding
Service to Medieval Studies.
Respectfully submitted,
RICHARD K. EMMERSON
DAVID N. KLAUSNER
NANCY VAN DEUSEN, Chair
|
|
