Mather Senior Tutor To Take Leave

Rena Fonseca, the Allston Burr Senior Tutor in Mather House, has announced she will go on leave from August 2001 through January 2002.

She will spend time in Cambridge, London and India during her semester off, though Fonseca declined to comment on who will replace her next fall.

Fonseca said that she needs to take a break from the pressures of college life and hopes the sabbatical will help her refocus.

"Although Senior Tutors are technically only "half-time" deans, we all have other roles as well, and the demands of being a senior tutor tend to

overwhelm the teaching role. Currently I teach two courses, a freshman seminar on contemporary Indian society, and a course on modern Indian history and politics," she said. "Our sabbaticals enable us to refresh our research, take stock, and concentrate on creative projects in a way that is impossible while on the job."

Born in Bombay, India, Fonseca received her B.A. in History from Bombay University in 1981. In 1991, she received her AM/PhD in History from Harvard. Since leaving India in 1981, she worked as a consultant for UNICEF between 1983 and 1984, was the Senior Tutor of Cabot House between 1987 and 1993, was a lecturer on Indian foreign policy in the History Department in 1991-1992, and was a senior fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C. in 1994.

Fonseca is currently a fellow at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies.

During her sabbatical, she plans to complete an unfinished manuscript for

the Institute of Peace Press.

In addition, she will be working on a new course she plans to teach at Harvard next spring about Indian women in fiction and film.

Fonseca says she will be available at Harvard, though not at her office, for much of her sabbatical.

As an extra perk of her leave, she notes that "I'm going to enjoy snoozing through those lively party nights which otherwise so often interrupt a senior tutor's dreams!"