Award Enhances Research and Teaching
Pamela Laird, professor of history, spent seven years studying some of history’s most famous “self-made men” and discovered that there weren’t any.
In her book, Pull: Networking and Success since Benjamin Franklin, Laird says she “looked at people like Benjamin Franklin and Andrew Carnegie, people who society has always held up as self-made men,” and found that they all had help.
Laird discovered that people only became aware of social networking after the women’s rights and civil rights movements. “It was no longer legal to push people out of opportunities. “They discovered that they needed social capital.”
The key to this discovery, says Laird, was in the language that people used. “Today, we talk about networking and mentoring. We institutionalize it and help people without social capital. Before the movements, it was assumed that success was strictly based on one’s own abilities, even though people had always used relationships to achieve success.”
Laird is the first recipient of the recently established Award for Outstanding Faculty Achievement, which recognizes exceptional contributions in teaching, service and research and/or creative work by a tenured faculty member in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The recipient receives a stipend of $5,000 per year for three years.
Laird says the award will enhance both her research and teaching. “When I get a chance to come up with new ideas, I get excited, and that helps my students.”