Petition: Academics in Support of Kim Hopper

Academics in Support of Professor Kim Hopper

To: Lee C. Bollinger, President
Seth Low Professor of the University
Columbia University

John H. Coatsworth, Provost
Professor of International and Public Affairs Professor of History
Columbia University

Dear President Bollinger and Provost Coatsworth,

We are a diverse group of scholars and university faculty who recognize Dr. Kim Hopper, a Professor in the Department of Sociomedical Sciences, as an eminent colleague and pathbreaking scholar.  He has made indelible contributions to the fields of anthropology, mental health services research, epidemiology, psychiatry, global public mental health, and research methodology.  As colleagues of Dr. Kim Hopper, we are astonished that the Department of Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia University issued him a letter of “non-renewal” effective July 2014 after 26 years of teaching and research on the Columbia faculty, having supervised hundreds of Columbia graduate students and served on over two dozen dissertation committees.  He has supported countless students and post-doctoral scholars from sources that range from the National Institute of Mental Health, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the New York State Department of Health, the World Health Organization, and the New York City Department of Health.  We urge you to review and reconsider this decision.

Dr. Hopper’s meticulous work has informed and shaped research and policy in homelessness and mental health services in the United States and globally.  His scholarship has had a profound impact on the fields of medical and psychiatric anthropology, mental health services research, epidemiology, public policy and public health.  It has inspired two generations of anthropologists, psychiatrists, epidemiologists, and mental health services professionals and researchers to better serve the public.

Dr. Hopper is considered an expert in understanding the complex experiences and needs of people who are homeless and in providing suggestions and solutions to stop homelessness.  He was one of the first researchers to go beneath the streets of New York, to create a census of the uncounted homeless people who tried to make homes there.  His extensive fieldwork and publications since have illuminated mental health services and addictions services, establishing “best practices,” including outpatient commitment, psychiatric advance directives, assertive community treatment, and the capabilities approach in human services.  His 2003 book, Reckoning with Homelessness (Cornell University Press), is considered essential reading in this field.  Often considered a “hidden population,” in New York City, there is no other researcher who knows more about the sources and potential solutions to homelessness than Dr. Hopper

Dr. Hopper also made major scholarly contributions to the field of global mental health through his analysis of variations in schizophrenia outcomes found in three decades of World Health Organization studies.  His 2007 book, Recovery from Schizophrenia—An International Perspective (co-authored with Glynn Harrison, Aleksandar Janca, Norman Sartorius, and published by Oxford University Press), has been central in discussions of   psychosis on a global scale and has highlighted the importance of social inequality in mental health risk and outcomes.  This approach is fueling the study of epigenetics in psychiatry and in strategizing for prevention of psychosis.

Dr. Hopper’s innovation in research and analysis methodology is substantial.  Three decades ago, he called for a more critical epidemiology and questioned how “cases” were constructed and for an interrogation of the  “black box” of culture.  Dr. Hopper contributed to the growth of community-based participatory research and supported the inclusion of users of mental health services.  To this end, Dr. Hopper led an NIMH-funded field school to train users of mental health services in how to conduct, analyze, and report research, which is currently in process.

Dr. Hopper has a prominent national and international profile.  He has served as the President of the National Coalition of the Homeless, on the Board of Directors for the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, and the Governor’s Task Force on Housing the Homeless in New York State.  He spent ten years as a reviewer for the National Institute of Mental Health.  He has been on the Editorial Board of Medical Anthropology Quarterly and a manuscript reviewer for a diverse range of publications, including Psychiatric Services, Human Organization, and Transcultural Psychiatry, as well as the University of California Press, Cornell University Press, Rutgers University Press, and Vanderbilt University Press.  And he is often at the table to help the New York State Office of Mental Health plan innovative programs to better serve people with psychiatric disabilities.  The field has been changed thanks to his passionate commitment to serve the destitute in New York City.

Kim Hopper’s contributions to our field are unique and highly respected.  He is deeply committed to his students, as is evident in the number of students he has mentored, and the outspoken support his former students give him.  We strongly encourage you to reconsider your decision, as it will have a negative impact on your university, your students, and the scholarly and research endeavors of our broader intellectual community.

Sincerely,

(List in progress):
[NOTE: To sign the petition, enter your name and title in the ‘name’ field, and your academic affiliation and any additional comments in the ‘comment’ field. Titles and affiliations will be noted as “for identification purposes only.”]

 

Sue E. Estroff, PhD

Professor of Social Medicine and Adjunct Professor of Anthropology and Psychiatry

University of North Carolina School of Medicine

 

Tanya Luhrmann, PhD

Watkins Professor of Anthropology

Stanford University

 

Helena Hansen, MD, PhD

Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Psychiatry

New York University

 

Neely Myers, PhD

Assistant Research Professor

George Washington University

 

Paul E. Farmer, MD, PhD

Kolokotrones University Professor

Chair of Global Health and Social Medicine

Harvard Medical School

 

Nancy Scheper-Hughes, PhD

Professor of Anthropology

University of California, Berkeley

 

Marcia Inhorn, PhD

William K. Lanman, Jr. Professor, Anthropology and International Affairs

Yale University

 

Gil Eyal, PhD

Professor of Sociology

Columbia University

 

Roberto Lewis-Fernandez, MD

Professor of Psychiatry

Columbia University Medical Center

Director, NYS Center of Excellence for Cultural Competence and Hispanic Treatment Program

New York State Psychiatric Institute

 

Bruce Dohrenwend, PhD

Professor of Social Science, Department of Psychiatry

Professor of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health

Columbia University

Chief of Research, Division of Social Psychiatry

N.Y. State Psychiatric Institute

 

Lesley Sharp, PhD

Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Anthropology

Barnard College

 

Arthur Kleinman, MD

Rabb Professor of Anthropology

Professor of Medical Anthropology and Psychiatry

Harvard Medical School

 

Byron Good, PhD

Professor of Medical Anthropology, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine

Harvard University

 

Vikram Patel, MRCPsych, PhD, FMedSci

Professor of International Mental Health & Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow

London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

 

Rayna Rapp, PhD

Professor and Associate Chair of Anthropology

New York University

 

Emily Martin, PhD

Professor of Anthropology, New York University

Director of the Institute for the History of Production of Knowledge

New York University

 

Faye Ginsberg, PhD

Kriser Professor of Anthropology

New York University

 

Fred Meyers, PhD

Silver Professor of Anthropology

New York University

 

Deborah Padgett, PhD

Professor of Social Work and Global Public Health, Silver School of Social Work and Global Institute of Public Health

New York University

 

Thomas Abercrombie, PhD

Associate Professor of Anthropology

New York University

 

Sharon Kaufman, PhD

Chair, Department of Anthropology, History and Social Medicine

University of California, San Francisco

 

Vincanne Adams, PhD

Professor and Vice-Chair of Anthropology, History, and Social Medicine

University of California, San Francisco

 

Ian Whitmarsh, PhD

Associate Professor, Director of Medical Anthropology Ph.D. Program, Department of Anthropology, History, and Social Medicine

University of California, San Francisco

 

Laurence Kirmayer, MD

James McGill Professor & Director, Division of Social & Transcultural Psychiatry

McGill University

 

Ellen Corin, PhD

Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Anthropology

McGill University

 

Mitchell Duneier, PhD

Maurice P. During Professor of Sociology

Princeton University

 

Janis H. Jenkins, PhD

Professor of Anthropology; Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry

University of California, San Diego

 

Lorna Rhodes, PhD

Emeritus Professor of Anthropology

University of Washington

 

Dagmar Herzog, PhD

Distinguished Professor of History

Graduate Center, City University of New York

 

John Barnhill, MD

Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and Public Health

Weill Cornell Medical College

 

Seth Holmes, MD, PhD

Martin Sisters Endowed Chair Assistant Professor of Public Health and Medical Anthropology

University of California, Berkeley

 

Elizabeth Bromley, MD, PhD

Assistant Professor in Residence, Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences

University of California, Los Angeles

 

Lisa Wexler, PhD, MSW

Division Director for Community Health Studies; Associate Professor in Community Health Education, Department of Public Health; School of Public Health and Health Sciences

University of Massachusetts, Amherst

 

Rebecca Lester, PhD, LCSW

Associate Professor of Anthropology

Washington University in St. Louis