U. approves termination of 13 courses at faculty meeting

All of the English and politics courses dropped were at the 300 level. The engineering courses added are CEE 312: Statistics of Structures and MAE 228/EGR 228/CBE 228: Energy Solutions for the Next Century.

The cuts come at a time when the total number of courses offered by the University has decreased over the last few semesters. The faculty members also discussed a memorial resolution on the death of politics professor Stanley Kelley Jr., changes to the graduate school’s curriculum and faculty nominations to various committees during the meeting.

Wilson School professor Larry Bartels read the memorial resolution on Kelley’s death. Kelley, who joined the University in 1957 and retired in 1995, died on Jan. 17, 2010, at age 83. Even after his retirement, Kelley advised seniors on their theses.

Kelley was “an embodiment of dedicated University citizenship,” Bartels said.

Though Kelley did not publish often or garner much “professional prestige,” he was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, received a Guggenheim Fellowship and was a fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences, Bartels said. He noted that there is an award in distinguished teaching for visiting professors at the University in Kelley’s name.

“Kelley performed every conceivable form of University service,” Bartels said, adding that he was a “cherished friend of philosophers, historians, sociologists and scientists.”

Kelley was the chair of the Committee on the Structure of the University from 1968 to 1970, and through that committee he “played a major role in designing the institutions that shaped Princeton,” Bartels said. The committee encouraged “more participation by students and non-tenured faculty members” at the University.

Kelley taught a course on party politics. “Every lecture was a gem, brilliant and carefully polished,” Bartels said. He explained that Kelley encouraged students not only to “absorb facts” but also to “engage ideas.” Serving as a teaching assistant for the course was a “prize assignment.”

“Kelley demanded of himself the excellence he demanded of others,” Bartels explained.

He noted that Kelley “would not allow any piece of work out of his possession” that was not perfect. As a consequence, Kelley was “never a prolific publisher of scholarly work.”

In his lifetime, Kelley published three “masterly books,” Bartels said: “Professional Public Relations and Political Power” in 1956, “Political Campaigning: Problems of Creating an Informed Electorate” in 1960 and “Interpreting Elections” in 1983.

Kelley’s first book “anticipated that the rise of political consultants would alter ... elections,” Bartels said.

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Kelley was born on Dec. 7, 1926, in Detroit, Kan. He attended the University of Kansas for a year before serving in World War II. He then went back to the same school to earn his bachelor’s and master’s degrees before receiving his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins.

Following the memorial resolution, there was a moment of silence for Kelley.

The faculty also approved adding five courses to the graduate school curriculum: ANT 521/522: Topics in Theory and Practice of Anthropology, AOS 522/GEO 522: Inverse Methods: Theory and Applications, and three religion courses.

New faculty members were also nominated to the committees on conference and faculty appeal, the course of study, the library and computing, undergraduate admission and financial aid, grading, and undergraduate life.

There were also nominations to the Executive Committee of the Council of the Princeton University Community.