Chair in Tamil Studies, UC, Berkeley

[nas_ng at lms420.jsc.nasa.gov]

From: steve at violet.berkeley.edu (Steven Poulos)
Date: 30 May 1996 19:41:35 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley

For Immediate Release

Prof. George L. Hart III has been named to the endowed Chair in
Tamil Studies by U.C. Berkeley Chancellor Chang-Lin Tien.
Chancellor Tien's letter of appointment reads in part "Please
accept the appointment of this endowed chair as an indication of
my gratitude for your many years of teaching and service and for
your scholarship which has reflected so favorably on the
Berkeley campus."

George Hart has been a Berkeley faculty member since 1973.  He
was promoted to full professor in 1981.  A Harvard B.A., M.A.
and Ph.D., Professor Hart is a graduate of the Department of
Sanskrit and Indian Studies at Harvard where his studies
included both Tamil and Sanskrit.  At Berkeley Professor Hart
has developed the Tamil program of language, literature and
cultural studies to be the most important of its kind in North
America.

Professor Hart is the author of textbooks for both Tamil and
Sanskrit and of translations of classical Tamil poetry and of
the Tamil Ramayana of Kampan.  George Hart is married to Tamil
lecturer Kausalya Hart who is also an author of several Tamil
language textbooks.


Background

The Chair in Tamil Studies endowment was raised as a joint
effort of the Center for South Asia Studies at U.C. Berkeley and
the San Francisco Bay Area Fundraising Committee for the Chair
in Tamil Studies

The San Francisco Bay Area Fundraising Committee constituted
itself four years ago to raise funds to support Tamil studies at
Berkeley.  Growing from a small group of concerned Bay Area
Tamil Americans, the Committee ultimately reached out to
incorporate Tamil Americans and Tamil Canadians as well as many
other friends of Tamil throughout North America.  Contributions
were received from over 450 families with many of them making
multiple donations.