October 3, 1996
Contact: Liz Latt, (615) 322-2706
Madeleine J. Goodman, dean of Vanderbilt's
College of Arts and Science, dies
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Madeleine J. Goodman, dean of the College of
Arts and Science at Vanderbilt University for the past two years, died Wednesday
afternoon of cancer at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Goodman, 51, came to Vanderbilt on Aug. 1, 1994, from the University of
Hawaii, where she spent 25 years as an accomplished administrator, professor
and scientific researcher.
"It is with great sadness that we learned of the passing of Madeleine
Goodman, a talented administrator and researcher who led the College of
Arts and Science with immense energy that was without equal and with an
expansive vision for its future," Chancellor Joe B. Wyatt said. "Madeleine
fought the cancer that ultimately took her life with the same determination
and spirit with which she approached her life's work. Her death leaves a
large void in our University community and beyond. Her family has our deepest
sympathies, and our thoughts and prayers during this difficult time."
Provost Thomas G. Burish said, "Madeleine Goodman was a gifted individual
with many personal talents richly and warmly shared with her family and
friends. She also brought those same talents to Vanderbilt University, especially
its College of Arts and Science. Although a member of the University community
only a short time, she fully dedicated herself to the work of the University.
She leaves many projects started, too few completed, but a legacy that will
help all of us build upon her good work and continue to move forward."
Goodman was serving as assistant vice president for Academic Affairs at
Hawaii when Vanderbilt offered her the position as dean of its largest school,
the College of Arts and Science. She also held professorships in biology
and anthropology at Vanderbilt.
As dean, Goodman enhanced the Vanderbilt experience, strengthening pre-health
professions advising, hiring a new director for the African-American Studies
Program, bringing new resources to the residential language halls in McTyeire
International House, to the Language Center and to the Fine Arts Gallery.
She had actively supported faculty research -- departmental, interdisciplinary
and inter-college. She was an active supporter of the Vanderbilt Free-Electron
Laser Center, along with the deans of the School of Medicine and School
of Engineering. She was instrumental in attracting new levels of funding
for the project.
A strong proponent of overseas study, she vigorously promoted many outreach
activities in the local community, including the Meet the Faculty luncheon
series, the Master's of Liberal Arts and Science degree for working adult
students and summer programs for rising high school seniors. A supporter
of music and the arts, Goodman had recently joined the Board of Directors
of the Nashville Symphony.
She also was a member of the University/Industrial Subcommittee of the Tennessee-Israel
Cooperation Committee, the national Board of Directors of Sigma Xi and served
on a number of committees at Vanderbilt.
Goodman was the author of two textbooks, eight book chapters and more than
30 scholarly articles and numerous reviews. She delivered more than 50 special
lectures and was the recipient of two National Science Foundation grants.
"I am a scientist who has a good rapport with the arts, humanities
and social sciences," Goodman said in an interview shortly after she
assumed her job at Vanderbilt.
In bioethical and biophilosophical work, Goodman often collaborated with
her husband, philosophy professor Lenn E. Goodman. Well known for his studies
of ethics and metaphysics, Lenn Goodman joined the Vanderbilt Department
of Philosophy in 1994.
A native of New York City, Madeleine Goodman began her teaching career as
an assistant professor in general science and women's studies at the University
of Hawaii in 1974.
Goodman was promoted to associate professor in 1980. She received the Chancellor's
Award for Distinctive Merit at Hawaii in 1981-82 and was promoted to full
professor in 1985. She was named assistant vice president for academic affairs
in 1986. She also spent a year serving as interim senior vice president
for academic affairs at the University of Hawaii in 1992-93. During that
time she undertook and implemented an ambitious effort to remedy salary
inequities based on gender and ethnicity. Also while at Hawaii, she devised
and implemented a nationally recognized program of post-tenure review.
Active on behalf of women and minorities, Goodman helped found the Women's
Studies Program at the University of Hawaii in 1978 and served as its director
for seven years. She led the effort to revise the University of Hawaii's
policy and procedures regarding sexual harassment and coordinated the development
of a new activist Affirmative Action Plan for the Manoa campus.
She was a past president of the University Faculty Senate at Hawaii and
led in the formation of a number of new schools, programs and institutes,
including the School of Ocean and Earth Sciences and Technology, which is
largely a graduate research endeavor.
Active in community as well as university affairs, Goodman chaired the Hawaii
Rhodes Scholarship selection committee and served as a regional committee
member in the national Rhodes Scholarship selection process. She continued
her involvement with the Rhodes Scholarship program after she moved to Nashville
and was a member of the Tennessee selection committee.
While at Hawaii, she also served as a member of the Disciplinary Board of
the Hawaii Supreme Court, overseeing ethics and professional practice of
the members of the Hawaii Bar. She received the 1993 Woman of Distinction
Award from Soroptimist International in Hawaii and in 1995 received the
University of Hawaii Distinguished Alumni Award.
In addition to her administrative duties, Goodman was a professor in the
College of Natural Sciences as well as serving on the graduate faculty in
biomedical sciences of the University of Hawaii School of Medicine.
She pursued an active program of scientific research and publication in
the areas of human biology and health, notably the causes and origin of
breast cancer and the biology of the human life cycle.
Goodman earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in zoology from Barnard College
at Columbia University in 1967 and a Ph.D. in genetics from the John A.
Burns School of Medicine at the University of Hawaii in 1973. She received
a diploma in human biology from Oxford University in 1968. She also served
as a National Institutes of Health pre- doctoral fellow in genetics in the
Department of Pediatrics at UCLA Medical School in 1968-69.
Born Sept. 11, 1945, Goodman attended a Jewish day school in New York. She
read biblical Hebrew and spoke modern Hebrew and French and was a member
of the Sherith Israel Congregation in Nashville.
Burial and interment are scheduled for 11:30 a.m. Friday at K.K.S.I. Cemetery
of the Sherith Israel Congregation conducted by Rabbi Zalman I. Posner.
Goodman is survived by her husband and two daughters, author Allegra Goodman
and Dr. Paula Fraenkel, both of Cambridge, Mass.; a brother, Bertram Schwarzbach
of Paris, France; and two grandsons, Ezra Karger and Gabriel Karger, both
of Cambridge, Mass.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that contributions be made to the Madeleine
Joyce Goodman Fund for the Vanderbilt Arts Center, 201 Alumni Hall, Vanderbilt
University, Nashville, TN 37240.
Marshall-Donnelly & Combs Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.
-VU-
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