Glenn C. Loury, a University of Michigan economist, will become the only Black senior faculty member in the Economics Department and the third senior faculty member in the Afro-American Studies Department this fall.
Loury said last night that he accepted Harvard's offer of a joint tenured position yesterday afternoon in a telephone conversation with Henry Rosovksy, dean of the Faculty.
The Afro-Am Department first approached Loury last spring, but he replied that the only offer he would consider from the department was a joint position with the Economics Department, Loury said.
The Economics Department voted to offer Loury tenure about two weeks ago. Department Chairman Zvi Gritches said yesterday.
A specialist in microeconomic theory, labor economics, and industrial organization, Loury said he plans to teach an undergraduate course in the Afro Am Department that addresses issues in Afro-American studies from an economic perspective. In addition, he said he expects to lead Afro-Am junior tutorials and graduate courses in economics.
At one point last year, when a joint appointment appeared impossible. Loury turned down the Afro-Am Department's offer, he said.
Griliches said the University and the Afro Am Department had not pressured the Economics Department to tenure Loury. "It's something the University though would be a good idea. We went back and forth on it and we agreed it was a good idea," he said.
"There were various people who lobbied for it, as there are in any decision, but pressure is too strong a word," Griliches said.
Explaining his insistence on a joint position. Loury said, "Although I have same interest in Afro-American studies, an appointment in that department alone would not have afforded me that breadth and opportunity for growth I felt were important."
He added, "It was important to know I would be involved in a department with graduate students and the ability to teach advanced courses."
Nathan I. Huggins, chairman of the Afro-Am Department, said last fall the department expected to make two tenured appointments by March--one in literature and one in a social science other than history.
Most of the country's Afro-Am department--including Harvard's, until this year--have focused on history and literature or history and culture. "We're starting to take a different approach--to bring a strong social science component into the department," Huggins and in October.
Huggins refused yesterday to comment Loury's appointment.
Among the subjects of Loury's past search and writings are the economics of racial discrimination, income distribution natural resources, and pricing theory.
Asked to describe his politics, Loury said. "I resist giving an answer because it would do a deserve to the richness of my political views." He added, "I'm not a radical leftist, but I'm not a supply-sider either."
Loury said he will leave his tenured position at the University of Michigan because "the quality of minds around me at Harvard will probably he as great there as anywhere I can think of," He added, "I would expect that the quality of student I will have contact with will be something I'm not used to, and I'll find it very stimulating and enacting."
In addition, he said, "The University is compensating me in a way I feel is very attractive.
