Faculty members receive Phillips Fellowships

Margaret Maurer-Fazio, assistant professor of economics, and Francisca Lopez, associate professor of Spanish, have been awarded Phillips Faculty Fellowships, Bates President Donald W. Harward announced.

Phillips Faculty Fellowships at Bates provide a full year’s paid leave, with additional funding for scholarly research, enabling fellows to travel, pursue scholarship and interact with other leading scholars in their field. The fellowships are part of an ambitious initiative of awards, honors and opportunities for faculty and students funded by a $9 million endowment bequest from former Bates President Charles F. Phillips and his wife, Evelyn Minard Phillips, in 1999.

Maurer-Fazio will continue her research on the integration of China’s urban labor markets. Working with colleagues at the Chinese Academy of Social Science, Beijing University and Australia National University, Maurer-Fazio’s work focuses on the experiences of and interactions among rural-to-urban migrants and employed and laid-off urbanites. The researchers will investigate the status of traditionally more-privileged urban workers in comparison to rural migrants. Maurer-Fazio and her colleagues will also explore how managers view the contribution of migrants and resident urban workers to the production process. The researchers will consider how increasing numbers of laid-off urban workers have been faring with their changing status.

Lopez will explore the impact of globalization and European integration on contemporary understandings of Spanish national identity. Her premise is that one of the most important changes brought by the rapid transition from dictatorship to democracy in Spain concerns the reconceptualization of national identity. Lopez will investigate how Spaniards identify themselves in relation to their region, their nation and Europe. She will also explore how identifications with macro (Europe) and micro (different autonomous regions within Spain) “nationalisms” function to include and exclude different groups within and outside the borders of the “new” Europe. Finally, Lopez will consider how these issues manifest themselves in cultural products such as television programming, magazines and fictional narratives.

President and Mrs. Phillips, longtime Auburn residents, officially served Bates from 1944 through 1966; Charles died in March 1999 just months after the death of Evelyn, his wife of 65 years.

In addition to the faculty fellowships, the Phillips Endowment Program supports student fellowships and two endowed faculty professorships, as well as academic programs recommended by the dean of the faculty.