June 18, 2018

The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University is pleased to announce the promotion of the following distinguished individuals to professor in their field. 

Norman Kutcher, Professor, History
Professor Kutcher is chair of the History department and Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professor for Teaching Excellence. His research interests include the cultural, social, and intellectual history of late Imperial China; the Imperial Household in the Qing dynasty; eunuchs; and the Yuanming Yuan, or Old Summer Palace. Kutcher is the recipient of the 2018 Excellence in Graduate Education Faculty Recognition Award from the Syracuse University Graduate School.

Jennifer Karas Montez, Professor, Sociology
Professor Karas Montez is the Gerald B. Cramer Faculty Scholar of Aging Studies and is a faculty associate in the Aging Studies Institute at Syracuse University. She was recently named a 2018 Andrew Carnegie Fellow, the most generous and prestigious fellowship in the social sciences and humanities. She specializes in social demography, social detriments of health, women’s health, spatial patterns, and trends in mortality.

In addition, the following have received tenure and promotion to the rank of associate professor:

Kristy Buzard, Associate Professor, Economics
Associate Professor Buzard joined the faculty in 2012. Her research focuses on the formation and maintenance of international trade agreements. She is particularly interested in the impact of international institutions, government structure, and domestic political pressure on the possibilities for cooperation on trade and related issues.

Jeffrey Gonda, Associate Professor, History
Associate Professor Gonda is a senior research associate with the Campbell Public Affairs Institute. His research focuses on the use of litigation campaigns by black communities to challenge racial discrimination. He is the recipient of the 2018 Daniel Patrick Moynihan Award for Teaching and Research. His article “Litigating Racial Justice at the Grassroots: The Shelley Family, Black Realtors, and Shelley v. Kraemer (1948)” was the recipient of the Hughes-Gossett Award, given to the best article published in the flagship Journal of Supreme Court History.

Daniel McDowell, Associate Professor, Political Science
Associate Professor McDowell’s interests focus on the politics of the international monetary and financial systems with an emphasis on the role of the United States, the IMF, and China in these arenas. He is the author of Brother, Can You Spare a Billion? The United States, the IMF, and the International Lender of Last Resort.

Gretchen Purser, Associate Professor, Sociology
Associate Professor Purser is director of undergraduate studies with sociology and co-coordinator of the Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflict and Collaboration (PARCC) Labor Studies working group. She specializes in work and labor, urban poverty, law and punishment, housing and homelessness, precarity, social theory, ethnography, and community-based action research. She is the recipient of a number of teaching awards including the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Award for Teaching and Research (2016) and the Meredith Teaching Recognition Award (2013).

Jonnell Robinson, Associate Professor, Geography
Associate Professor Robinson is the director of the Syracuse Community Geography program. Her research and teaching interests include community-based and participatory action research, and specifically Participatory GIS (Geographic Information Systems). She is the recipient of several awards including the Meredith Teaching Recognition Award (2017) and the Chancellor’s Citation for Excellence (2011).

Rebecca Schewe, Associate Professor, Sociology
Associate Professor Schewe is director of graduate studies with sociology, a senior research associate at the Center for Policy Research, and an O’Hanley Faculty Scholar. Her research examines how the major social institutions of the state, economy, and community structure our human interactions with ecosystems. She has received several research grants from the United States Department of Agriculture and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“The Maxwell School is very fortunate to have these excellent scholars, teachers, and university citizens,” says David M. Van Slyke, dean of the Maxwell School. “Their research has had a significant impact both locally and globally. They make a difference in the lives of others – in the classroom and beyond. These recently promoted and tenured faculty continue to set a high bar for what it means to be a professor at Syracuse University and in the Maxwell School.”