History Prof Drew Faust offered position at Yale

History Professor and Women's Studies Director Drew Faust is deciding whether or not to remain at Penn after being offered a professorship at Yale University's History Department. "I have to decide about this offer, and I haven't decided it," Faust said, adding that she will probably make her decision "within the next few weeks." Regardless of her decision, Faust said she will teach at Penn through the 1997-98 academic year. Faust and her husband, History Professor Charles Rosenberg -- who was also offered a professorship at Yale -- traveled to New Haven, Conn., last weekend to visit the school. "We had a very nice time, everyone was very gracious," Faust noted, explaining that the offer to teach at Yale is tempting because of the university's "distinguished tradition" in studying the American South -- her area of expertise. "Many of the strongest people of my field in my generation were trained at Yale," she said, adding that Yale's History Department is ranked No. 1 in the nation. The department is wooing Faust as part of an attempt to recruit three outstanding female professors to join the American South teaching staff. But as much as Yale wants Faust, Penn's History Department hopes that the distinguished professor will continue to teach in West Philadelphia. "The History Department thinks of Drew Faust as one of our departmental treasures, and we are very much hoping that we can keep her at Penn," Department Chairperson Lynn Lees said. Faust said the department has been supportive throughout her decision-making process and added that "this is not about a bidding war." Both Lees and Faust noted that the Penn History program is strong in its own right. "We think that with [former University president] Sheldon Hackney coming back to Penn and adding to the strength of our program in the American South, we will have a first-rate program on the undergraduate as well as graduate levels," Lees said. But for Faust, the decision is largely personal. "It's really up to me to figure out what I want in my life," she said. "I think it's a matter of different institutions having different configurations of faculty, different students, different environments." She added that she is "very devoted to Penn" --Ewhich makes sense as she has been at the University since graduate school. "It's a healthy process in a lot of ways, because it leads me to ask questions about my teaching here, my research," she noted, adding that she has had to ask herself, "Am I here out of inertia, or [am I] here out of choice?" Although they remain loyal to Penn, in the last decade Faust and Rosenberg have been recruited by other prestigious schools, including Harvard and Johns Hopkins universities.