Anna Kirkland Awarded Collegiate Professorship

August 2022

Outgoing IRWG director Anna Kirkland will be appointed as the Kim Lane Scheppele Collegiate Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, effective September 1. Each faculty member honored with a Collegiate professorship selects its name from the ranks of previous University of Michigan faculty. Kim Lane Scheppele was a member of the Political Science faculty from 1984 until 1996. She went on to teach at Penn Law and Princeton University, where she is the Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Sociology and International Affairs in the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and in the University Center for Human Values. Prof. Scheppele was the founding director of the Program in Gender and Culture at Central European University, among many other career achievements. “I chose Kim, a longtime friend and mentor, because she is a brilliant feminist scholar of law and society who has dedicated her scholarly career to fighting authoritarianism,” said Professor Kirkland. “I am so grateful for this honor and the chance to name it after a giant in my field whose work is so important for this moment.” 

A Collegiate professorship is one of the highest honors the college and the university can bestow upon a faculty member, in recognition of excellence in research, teaching, and service. Prof. Kirkland also holds an Arthur F. Thurnau professorship.