Letters of Support

Schilcher Support Committee

Letters of Support

August 21, 2005

To whom it may concern:

I am pleased to provide a letter of support for Professor Linda Schilcher, formerly of Villanova University and the University of Arkansas. I was chairperson of the history department at Villanova University from 1983 to 1998 and was fortunate to assist in the hiring of Professor Schilcher in 1985. The search committee for a Middle Eastern historian was impressed, as I was, with Schilcher's superb credentials and her doctorate from Oxford University in England. We thought that she would be a good teacher and an excellent scholar, as she proved to be. We were sorry to have lost her to the University of Arkansas but Arkansas had a doctoral program in Middle Eastern studies and we did not.

As astonishing as it might seem, Professor Schilcher was the first woman to be hired in a history department of 18 white males. Villanova had been an all-male institution until 1967 and an aggressively masculine culture still pervaded the campus. Patriarchy and paternalism, much of it emanating from the all-male Augustinian religious order that governed the place, made life a challenge for women just entering the Villanova community. We were happy that Schilcher was a feminist as we thought she had a right and a duty to be, but we wondered how she would fare in an atmosphere less than auspicious for women. All she asked me of me was to try to hire at least a second woman for the history department, as I was happily able to do simultaneously with her appointment in 1985.

We knew that Schilcher would be a force for good, for diversity and change, as she proved to be. She stood her ground for feminism, as we hoped, but was not aggressive or confrontational about it. We knew that she would have the courage to stand against any wrong-doing or corruption if she found it in our academic community but fortunately she did not discover it in the history department or at Villanova University, as far as we could tell. She was willing, even without tenure, to ask probing questions and to hold me, as her chairperson, to account. But I never found her anything other than honest and principled, nuanced and balanced in her approach to academia. I was delighted to have her as a colleague, my junior in academic standing but my superior in research and scholarship. I wish her the very best in all her future endeavors.
Respectfully submitted:

Don Kelley, Chairperson
History Department, 1983-1998
Villanova University Villanova, PA 19085

Don Kelley
243 Stoneway Lane
Merion Station, PA 19066-1819
610-660-9532
donkelley@mybluelight.com
__________________________________________

Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2005 19:44:43 +0200

Dear Sirs!

Professor Linda Schilcher, founding member and first president of the Syrian Studies Association left a fundamental imprint in the field of Syrian Studies - both on the level of research and institutional networking. Her pioneering work on Damascus opened up new dimensions of social historical studies on Syria and the Middle East. In her methodological ground-breaking work she incorporated new sources into the research on Middle Eastern societies. Especially for the younger scholars her approach became a guide in their research and she was highly influential on the following academic generation. With the idea and foundation of the Syrian Studies Association she gave the

growing field of Syrian Studies an institutional framework for regular meetings and exchange of ideas. I myself profit enormously during my academic career and establishing of an academic network from the Syrian Studies Association. Both on the level on research and institutional academic exchange I am very thankful for Professor Schilcher's selfless efforts.

Dr. Stefan Weber

Responsible for History and Architecture at the Orient-Institute Beirut

Rue Hussein Beyhum (Zokak el-Blat)

P.O. Box. 11 - 29 88

Riad el-Solh Beirut 11 07 21 20

Beirut - LEBANON

____________________________________

To: schilchersupport@earthlink.net
Subject: Letter of support
Date: Aug 25, 2005 6:19 AM

I would like to express all my support to Professor Schilcher in her case against the University of Arkansas.

As a researcher on the Middle East, with special reference to Lebanon and Syria, I was shocked by the general attitude of her University, especially in such a critical moment in Middle-Eastern and area studies. I cannot but feel that there is a general movement to shunt aside competent scholars who could have their say in the way the Middle East is being researched and treated.

Michael F. Davie
Professor
Tours (France)
and
UMR "Géographie et Culture", Université Paris IV - Sorbonne

___________________________________________
Michael F. Davie michael.davie@univ-tours.fr
Professeur, Département de Géographie
UFR de Droit, d'Economie et de Sciences Sociales
Université François-Rabelais
B.P. 0607, 37206 Tours Cedex 3 (France)
___________________________________________

To: schilchersupport@earthlink.net
Subject: Support
Date: Aug 25, 2005 2:14 PM

After having read the details of the case against Professor L. Schilcher, I wish to express my indignation at the way academics are treated in the US, especially a person of the
internationally-recognized stature as Professor L. Schilcher's.

Professor L. Schilcher has already largely proven her scientific and personal integrity and her capacity to lead ground-breaking research on the Middle East. No reproach could be brought against her in all matters relating to academic life.

By this message I wish to express all my support to her.

May Fatté

University of Balamand - Lebanon
and
CEHVI (Centre d'Histoire de la Ville Moderne et Contemporaine),
University of Tours, France

------------------------------------------------------
May DAVIE mdavie@univ-tours.fr
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To: schilchersupport@earthlink.net
Subject: Linda Schilcher
Date: Aug 28, 2005 2:29 PM

Committee in support of Linda Schilcher

I have read through the material posted on the website by the Committee in support of Dr. Linda Schilcher. I would like to add to this documentation of poor professional conduct my own experience serving on the Board of the Syrian Studies Association (SSA) at a time when Dr. Schilcher was both President of the SSA as well as a member of the Faculty at the University of Arkansas. Dr Schilcher was the founding president of the SSA and worked with unceasing energy and commitment to raise the profile of the SSA. During this period she was negotiation with the University of Arkansas to host a major international conference on Syria. The planning was well underway and many scholars had made the commitment to attend such a meeting at the University when Dr Schilcher was suddenly faced with the withdrawal of the promised funding by the Dean of her Faculty. This was an embarrassment for the SSA as well as the University of Arkansas. Some of the details regarding these negotiations cannot be precisely recalled by me, but I do remember that there was very much a sense that the Department or Faculty had gone back on their word to Dr. Schilcher. The following year her contract was terminated.

Dr. Schilcher has been treated most appallingly by the University of Arkansas. Some of these actions spilled out into the public domain, such as the retraction of funding for an international conference at the University. Other matters were hushed up. Hopefully this trial will now lay bare the extent of the University of Arkansas's wrong doing in the unfair dismissal of Dr. Schilcher.

Yours sincerely, Dawn Chatty
dawn.chatty@qeh.ox.ac.uk
________________________________

From: Frau Reue <reue@imsd.uni-mainz.de>
To: schilchersupport@earthlink.net
Subject: *****
Date: Aug 30, 2005 12:06 AM

to whom it may concern:

IT IS INCREDIBLE WHAT CAN HAPPEN TO A WOMAN!!!

IT IS INCREDIBLE HOW "RIGHTS" & LAW IS USED/ ABUSED!!!

Christa Reue, Mainz, Germany.
______________________________________

To: schilchersupport@earthlink.net
Subject: Concerning Dr.Schilcher
Date: Sep 2, 2005 1:03 AM

To Whom It May Concern:

I, the undersigned, Muhammad N. Kuwatly, a Genealogist Engineer and a History Researcher, would hereby acknowledge that I have known Dr. Schilcher since about ten years. We worked together in some genealogy projects pertaining to the envisaged translation of her famous book "Families in Politics", as well as in other projects. It is very rare to find such a superb scholar, I consider myself fortunate that I had the chance to work with her. Her toil and vast research to author her above book, rendered a first class work which included facts which were never revealed previously. The said book is now considered by most researchers the number ONE reference book covering the designated era. People who were interviewed for the sake of acquiring first hand views from eye witnesses or their descendants, expressed their admiration of Dr. Schilcher's personality, attitude and immense knowledge and enormous wealth of first hand information.

We all sincerely wish that Dr. Schilcher would be able to author another book covering the subsequent era of the same topic covered in her above book, to allow a correct chronological comparison.

Best Regards,

Muhammad N. Kuwatly

29 August 2005

kuwatly@msn.com

Aisha Bakkar District
1, Al Rashidine Street
Beirut
Lebanon
___________________________

Aix-en-Provence 9 September 2005

Dear members of the Linda Schilcher Support Committee,

I first met Linda Schilcher when I was a graduate student at NYU on my way to Syria in the early 1980s on a Fulbright to begin dissertation research. Knowing, in fact, very little about the country at that time, I naturally turned to Linda as the one of the very few knowledgeable persons on the Ottoman history of Syria. Never having heard of me, she nonetheless welcomed me very warmly (into her home for tea) and spoke to me for several hours about the intricacies of archival research in Damascus, a place in the early 1980s where very few Americans conducted their research. True to her generous nature, she also gave me names and telephone numbers of Syrian, German and French researchers living in Damascus at that time so that I would immediately have the basis of a scientific network to help me as a graduate student taking my first steps in the research world. Linda Schilcher was, in fact, one of the very first Americans to have established herself as a long-time and highly-respected researcher in Syria in the 1970s and I know, for a fact, that my own research, both my dissertation as well as subsequent publications were always directly enhanced by Linda's work.

During one of the international conferences in which Linda presented her research in the early 1990s, she spoke to me and a number of other researchers working on Syria about an idea of hers to establish a Syrian Studies Group (SSG). This conversation, which occurred in Aix-en-Provence in July 1992, materialized shortly thereafter when Linda created, nearly single-handedly, the SSG. Enchanted by the idea of an organization which would bring together scholars working on Syria of all ages and levels, of all nationalities, in all academic disciplines and other professionals interested in Syria, I immediately became a member of the SSG. As a member of the SSG Board, I greatly admired Linda's untiring efforts to promote Syrian studies on an international level. It was highly exciting and under Linda's guidance as the first president of the SSG (which subsequently became the SSA -- the Syrian Studies Association www.ou.edu/ssa), this organization played a fundamental role in creating panels at scientific gatherings, in inviting Syrian scholars to the United States to participate in scientific conferences, etc. All these activities are continued today under the fourth president of the SSA, a testimony to Professor Linda Schilcher's initiative back in 1992, thirteen years ago.

First knowing Linda when I was a novice graduate student and then later on as a colleague in Syrian studies, I unfailingly admired and continue to admire and benefit from her scholarship (in an article which I am presently writing on Ottoman Damascus, I consistently refer to her research as one of the outstanding pieces of historical scholarship on 18th and 19th century Damascus) as well as from her truthfulness, her sincerity and her intellectual and personal generosity.

Cordially,

Randi Deguilhem, Associate Professor (CR1 Habil.)

CNRS, IREMAM-MMSH, Aix-en-Provence, France

Board Member of the MMSH Doctoral Program Board of Directors (2005-8)

Co-Director (2000-6) of the central doctoral seminar "Arab, Muslim and Semitic Worlds"

Immediate past president (2001-2003), Syrian Studies Association (www.ou.edu/ssa)

5 rue château de l'horloge BP 647
13094 Aix-en-Provence, France

deguilhem@mmsh.univ-aix.fr
randi.deguihem@wanadoo.fr