 | Since taking over as dean of the Graduate School, historian Jon Butler (center) has been visiting the various departments of the Graduate School. |
When the newest crop of graduate students arrived on campus this year, they were greeted by another (relative) newcomer: Jon Butler, who on July 1 began his first year as the 19th dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
While new in the deanship, however, Butler is no stranger to Yale. He has served on the faculty since 1985, and he holds the Howard R. Lamar Professorship of American Studies, History and Religious Studies. At Yale, he served as chair of the Department of History 1999-2004 and the American Studies Program 1988-1993 and was director of the Humanities Division 1997-1999. Before coming to Yale, Butler taught at California State College at Bakersfield and the University of Illinois at Chicago. He holds B.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Minnesota.
In his research, Butler has illuminated an oft-ignored aspect of American history -- the development of its religious traditions. His books include "Awash in a Sea of Faith: Christianizing the American People," which won the American Historical Association's Beveridge Award as the best book on American history in 1990, and "Becoming America: The Revolution Before 1776." He is also co-editor of the 17-volume series "Religion in American Life," published by Oxford University Press for adolescent readers. He was honored as a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians 2001-2007.
Butler's wife, Roxanne, coordinates the Homebound Tutoring program for the Hamden Public Schools. They have two sons: Ben, an assistant public defender in Minneapolis; and Peter, a former special-needs teacher, who is now pursuing a master's degree in social work at Boston University.
The new dean took time from his busy schedule to talk with the Yale Bulletin & Calendar about his new post.
The primary task of the dean is to provide the broadest direction for graduate study at Yale in all of its facets, including master's and Ph.D. programs in an astonishing number of disciplines, most of which are remarkably different from each other in their substance, dynamics and outcomes.
What ties them together and gives life to the Graduate School is that they all are inspired by a sense of discovery. They create new knowledge, tell us things we haven't known before, and enlarge not only what we know, but also our capacity for knowing. It's truly amazing to see how differently the departments work and yet how they're all driven by the passion for figuring things out, for probing problems -- whether in ancient history, cell biology, physics or contemporary culture. All share a commitment to produce original knowledge and a sense of professionalism that inspires younger men and women to develop the skills and techniques they need to pursue a rewarding professional life.
The dean's job is to see that all elements in the Graduate School aim toward these larger ends.
I'm particularly interested in encouraging the faculty to mentor graduate students as vigorously and as helpfully as possible. We're going to be discussing the institutional points at which guidance from faculty is critically important, so that we help students move along in their programs. Unlike law and medical school programs, a Ph.D. program is highly individualized. Ph.D. programs especially require students to have tremendous individual initiative because the final product -- a dissertation -- is so highly individualized and so reflective of the research emphasis that will likely typify its author's subsequent career. It's the responsibility of the faculty and Graduate School to draw out those highly individualized research capacities as completely as possible.
Every dean comes to the position from somewhere. I come out of three departments in the Division of Humanities at Yale: history, which in many universities is configured in the social sciences; religious studies; and American studies. So I know about the humanities and social sciences. But I needed to learn a lot about the sciences. Therefore, this summer I visited two, sometimes three departments a week. I've taken tours and discussed issues relevant to the Graduate School with chairs and DGS's [directors of graduate studies], trying to discern their disciplinary profile, what they need from the University, and where the Graduate School can be helpful.
I have a notion that some knowledge of physical place is important. You can't know about Iowa unless you've been there. You can't know about the Department of Chemistry unless you've been there. Similarly, I've met with all members of the Graduate School staff, mostly in their offices. It's important for me to see where people work, whether it's down the hall in HGS [Hall of Graduate Studies], or across campus in MCDB [molecular, cellular and developmental biology] or BBS [biological and biomedical sciences] in the School of Medicine.
The dean needs to be aware of Yale's different cultures. You can't make intelligent, thoughtful decisions unless you know what the world looks like. I've also toured the graduate student residences -- HGS, Helen Hadley Hall and the married student apartments -- to get a better sense of how students live. And, as dean, I am continuing the longstanding practice of meeting with students in their departments throughout the year.
It's fun. I like to see how different departments pursue their intellectual agendas. I find it fascinating to go from engineering to MCDB to music to my own world of history, religious studies and American studies. They all pursue topics in different ways, and it's interesting to learn how they do it and, then, to bring suggestions from one to another.
There's a tendency for each department to think that its world is THE world. Indeed, Yale likewise has a habit of thinking that the Yale way is THE way. But, of course, we know that other institutions are succeeding magnificently, even while achieving results in very different ways. We can learn from them, and they can learn from us, just as disciplines can learn from each other.
Yale is easily among the five best graduate schools in the country by any standard measurement, among which one would include the aid we give to students, the scholarly resources with which we provide them, the degree of contact they have with faculty, the structure of the graduate programs and the professional outcomes. Our graduates compete for terrific jobs and develop outstanding careers.
My own excitement is exemplified in my two shelves of books by students I've worked with at Yale across the years, some as a principal adviser, some as a member of a dissertation committee, and some simply as a teacher of students I've now known many years.
I grew up in Hector, Minnesota, a town of 1,100 people in the rural central part of the state. My high school class had 49 students. My dad was a farmer with a B.S. in agricultural engineering from the University of Minnesota, and my mother was a homemaker who did not go to college. I had glimmerings of being a singer, but in college I exchanged singing for history and never went back. When you don't have a true high C, you're not really a tenor.
I took both of my degrees at the University of Minnesota, where two wonderful historians, named Darrett Rutman and John Howe, hooked me on early American history. I especially loved the history of 18th-century America, and for several decades I combined that interest with religion, for reasons I've never figured out myself. In recent years, however, I've concentrated on 19th- and 20th-century American religion.
My first teaching position was at California State College, Bakersfield. I had wonderful, fascinating students, virtually all of them the first college student in their families -- some Chicano, some African American, some descendants of "Okie" migrants to central California in the Depression. But Bakersfield was far too hot for a Minnesotan, and in 1975 I moved to the University of Illinois at Chicago, where I taught for 10 years in a terrific history department on an expanding urban campus.
I'm teaching a freshman seminar on the American Revolution. It's simply wonderful to teach 15 freshmen through their first semester of college by concentrating on one of the greatest of all American events, the Revolution. In the spring I intend to teach a graduate research seminar focused on the art of the history article -- how to make a compelling and clear historical argument in 30 to 35 pages. I simply love doing it.
Indeed, I had planned to be on leave all year, since my term as chair of the history department was over in June. When I figure out the rhythms of "deaning," I'll get back to my book project, which is titled "God in Gotham." It's about religion in New York City, the capital of American secularism. It dissects the ways faith survived and prospered in modern culture, despite widespread predictions by sociologists like Max Weber that religion would wither and die as it was smothered by industrialization, urbanization, technology and bureaucracy. In America, that just didn't happen, and for better or worse, we live with religion's survival and prosperity in modern times. I think that uncovering the story of religion in modern Manhattan can tell us something about religion's remarkable persistence in the modern world.
-- By Gila Reinstein
T H I S
Encouraging love of discovery a priority
for new Graduate School dean
What do you see as the role of the Dean of the Graduate School?
What plans do you have for the Graduate School?
How did you get to know the Graduate School as a whole?
Why take tours?
Do you enjoy being a dean?
Compared to our peer institutions, how does Yale rate among the graduate schools of America?
What inspired you to become a historian?
Before coming to Yale in 1985, what did you do?
Do you plan to teach during your tenure as dean?
What about the book you were planning to write this year?
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