Roesch Chair in the Social Sciences
The Raymond A. Roesch, S.M. Chair in the Social Sciences was established in 2002 to recognize the importance of the social sciences to a liberal education and the performance of critical research. The chair is named in honor of Raymond A. Roesch, S.M., former President of the University and a Professor of Psychology. Donald J. Polzella, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, was the first holder of the Roesch Chair. Mark Ensalaco, Ph.D., was installed in 2006.The purpose of the Raymond A. Roesch, S.M. Chair in the Social Science is to stimulate innovative and interdisciplinary teaching and scholarship in the social sciences. The office brings visibility to the social sciences both within the curriculum and within the broader intellectual life of the University. The office provides this presence through the development of interdisciplinary initiatives, research, seminars, symposia and other programs.
The administration of the chair provides leadership in establishing the social sciences in the curriculum and in the broader intellectual life of the community. The chair maintains a visible presence on campus through the development of several programs, including symposia that promote and showcase social science research.
About Fr. Raymond A. Roesch, S.M.
Fr. Raymond A. Roesch, S.M., a native of Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, entered the Society of Mary in 1933 and graduated from the University of Dayton in 1936. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1944. Fr. Roesch returned to UD in 1951 as a professor of psychology. After serving seven years as chair of the department, he became the sixteenth president of the University in 1959.
Fr. Roesch was instrumental in giving the university campus a new look. Hoping to make his vision of excellence for the University of Dayton a reality, Fr. Roesch not only oversaw the renovation of existing campus buildings, but was instrumental in several new construction projects, including Kennedy Union, Miriam Hall, Roesch Library, and the University of Dayton Arena. He developed the housing capacity for making UD a residential campus with the construction of Marycrest Hall, Stuart Hall and Campus South. He also provided the leadership in shaping the academic curriculum for a modern, comprehensive university. During his twenty-year presidency, he added nine academic departments, six associate degree programs, eighteen bachelor degree programs and forty-four masters programs. The School of Law also reopened under his leadership.
Fr. Roesch retired from the UD presidency in 1979. Shortly thereafter, he became acting president of Chaminade University in Honolulu, Hawaii. Following his retirement from Chaminade in 1989, Fr. Roesch returned to the University of Dayton to act as a special assistant to the president. He held this position until his death in 1991.
When Fr. Roesch officiated at the dedication of Sherman Hall on May 9, 1960, he set the Sherman Hall pendulum into motion. This pendulum captures the essence of Fr. Roesch's leadership. He set into motion the commitment to excellence that continues to shape the University of Dayton. We have established the Raymond A. Roesch Chair in the Social Sciences to recognize his contributions to the University of Dayton. For a period of forty years, he exemplified the Marianist commitment to servant leadership, and this endowed position will serve as a constant reminder of our duty to build upon his legacy.
About the Current Chair
Mark Ensalaco, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science. He joined the faculty of the University of Dayton in 1989. His teaching and research concern human rights and political violence and terrorism.
Professor Ensalaco served as the director of the International Studies program from 1997 to 2006. In 1998, he founded the Human Rights Studies program, the first undergraduate program specifically concerned with Human Rights in the United States. In 1999 he co-founded the university's Human Rights Committee composed of faculty members who teach in the human rights program and who have a professional concern for human rights and social justice.
As chair of the Human Rights Committee, Professor Ensalaco helped organize four major international conferences on Human Rights Education, the Rights of the Child, Peace and Human Rights, and Violence against Women. In 2000, Professor Ensalaco established the Archbishop Oscar Romero Human Rights Award to commemorate the ministry and martyrdom of the slain Salvadoran archbishop and to honor an individual or organization who has earned distinction in the promotion of the dignity of all persons.
Also in 2000, Professor Ensalaco co-founded the International Human Rights Education Consortium, a not-for-profit organization, to promote human rights education at colleges and universities around the world. The Consortium has more than thirty institutional members from the United States and Canada, Latin America, Europe, Africa and Asia. Professor Ensalaco served as the Consortium's first president from 2000-2005.
Professor Ensalaco has been both professionally and personally engaged in the pursuit of justice and the search for the disappeared in Chile since 1991, when he was a visiting professor at the School of Law at the Universidad de Concepcion. His first book, Chile under Pinochet: Recovering the Truth (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999) examined the repression under the Pinochet dictatorship and the early efforts to recover the truth about the systematic human rights violations as a way of reestablishing democracy and the rule of law.
Professor Ensalaco is currently working on the sequel to that book, The Mark of Cain: The Prosecution of Pinochet and the Search for the Disappeared. The book is a behind-the-scenes account of the investigation, impeachment and indictment of Augusto Pinochet.
Professor Ensalaco has also been involved in other human rights projects. He is the co-editor (with Professor Linda Majka) and contributing author of Children's Human Rights: Progress and Challenges to Children Worldwide, which was published by Rowman and Littlefield in 2005. Seven University of Dayton faculty members have chapters in that edited volume. Professor Ensalaco was also coeditor and contributing author of Using the Inter-American System for Human Rights: A Practical Guide for NGOs, which was published by Global Rights, a widely respected international human rights organization.
Professor Ensalaco is also an expert in political violence and terrorism. He recently published A History of Middle East Terrorism: From Black September to September 11 with the University of Pennsylvania Press in 2007.
Professor Ensalaco has been widely quoted as a terrorism expert by the BBC, Reuters, the Associated Press and United Press International. His comments have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Forbes, The Washington Post, Guardian, Newsday and ABCNews.com, and other media outlets. He has been interviewed by the Voice of America, CNN Espanol, CNN Headline News, PBS Radio and Fox News.
Professor Ensalaco received an M.T.S. in Theological Studies at Harvard Divinity School in 1984. In 1988 he was awarded a Fulbright-Hays fellowship to conduct doctoral research at the Universidad de Los Andes in Bogota, Colombia. He was awarded a Ph.D. in Political Science from the State University of New York in 1991. He received advanced training in human rights at the Inter-American Institute for Human Rights in San Jose, Costa Rica in 1993 and 1994.
