Dear COR colleagues,
Welcome to the Fall quarter!
As we were planning our beginning of the year COR event, we received the
very sad news of Jim March’s passing. Jim was the Founding Dean of the
School of Social Sciences at UCI, and a staunch and inspirational
supporter of our Center for Organizational Research from its early
beginnings as a COR External Affiliate Member.
Please join us in celebration of Professor James G. March’s life and his
towering organizational scholarship contributions on Friday, October 12.
Professor Martha Feldman will provide opening remarks. We also include
Dean Bill Maurer’s memorial message below.
DATE: Friday, October 12
WHEN: 12:00-1:30
WHERE: SBSG 1321
We sincerely hope you can join us to honor Professor March and come
together as a COR community to connect with old friends and meet new
colleagues as we start a new academic year.
Lunch will be provided.
Please RSVP by October 8 to cor@uci.edu.
We hope to see many of you!
Best wishes,
Nina Bandelj and Melissa Mazmanian
COR Co-Directors
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A message sent by Dean Bill Maurer, Dean of School of Social Sciences,
October 2, 2018
Dear social sciences colleagues,
It is with a heavy heart that I write of the passing of James D. March,
founding dean of the UCI School of Social Sciences. Jim was 90 years
old.
When Jim first arrived at UCI in 1965, the campus wasn’t much more
than a few buildings sprinkled amidst the rolling hills and grazing
cattle of south Orange County. He came west that pivotal year in the
university’s history after having served more than a decade on the
faculty of the Carnegie Institute of Technology. A professor of
industrial administration and psychology, he was appointed founding dean
of the School of Social Sciences, a position he held until 1969.
Jim was also towering figure in the sociology of organizations and put
his theories into practice here in the School of Social Sciences at UCI.
In creating the school with a flexible organizational form and infusing
it with an interdisciplinary ethos, Jim animated the collaborative
spirit that continues to inspire us, and that has allowed us to achieve
national standing without ever becoming conventional.
In 1970, he went on to pursue his academic career [1] at Stanford and
research [2] on how decisions happen in groups, organizations, companies
and societies. He became a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences,
the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of
Education, and he received numerous awards for teaching and research.
One such honor included the Medal of Progress from the Society for
Progress (France), awarded to Jim in 2016 for “pioneering work on the
influence of identity, courage, and a logic of appropriateness in the
adaptation of organizational goals and action, and the remedial
rationality of ‘playfulness and foolishness’,” according to the
award selection committee.
When he passed, he was the Jack Steele Parker Professor of International
Management in the Graduate School of Business and professor emeritus of
political science and sociology at Stanford University. He was also an
accomplished poet [3], having penned nine books of poetry.
Jim received his B.A. from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in
1945 in political science. He received his M.A. in 1950 and Ph.D. in
1953 from Yale University, both in political science. He holds honorary
doctorates at more than a dozen universities around the world.
Information on memorial services will be made available as details
develop.
Bill
Links:
——
[1] https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/faculty/james-g-march
[2] https://hbr.org/2006/10/ideas-as-art
[3] https://economicsociologydotorg.files.wordpress.com/2018/09/between-polis-and-poiesis.pdf
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