From honored poets to internationally acclaimed human rights scholars.
The distinguished interdisciplinary faculty gathered in the SMU MLS program represents the best of the best. From honored poets to internationally acclaimed human rights scholars, more than 40 professors bring a wealth of knowledge in their individual areas of expertise to classrooms that radiate their love of teaching.
Faculty in the News
Dr. Gary Swaim, Faculty Advisor for the Creative Writing Program in the Master of Liberal Studies Program, has been invited as one of eight poets to be included in a new anthology of poetry to be published by Baskerville Publishing. 8 Voices, Contemporary Poetry from the American Southwest will be launched throughout the southwest: Santa Fe and Albuquerque, NM; Ft. Worth, Dallas, and Waco, Texas; and Norman, Oklahoma. Dr. Swaim will, additionally, have a reading and book signing at SMU, early in the spring semester.
Recent developments associated with the Dallas Museum of Biblical Arts, have set in motion plans for the presentation of Dr. Swaim's spiritual poetry related to the Sacred Sculpture of notable sculptor, Gib Singleton (The Stations of the Cross). A future production of Swaim's drama, Two to Waken Him, based on the closing months in the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer is scheduled, as well, Dates TBA.
His digital art paintings were presented at the Davis Foundry Gallery in the Bishop Arts District (October 6 - November 24, with Artist Reception October 13) and at the La Cima Club in Las Colinas (October 30 - January 3, with Artist Reception November 29).
MLS Faculty
G. William Barnard
Associate Professor, SMU Department of Religious Studies SMU University Distinguished Teaching Professor
Ph.D. University of Chicago
Dr. G. William Barnard's primary areas of research are the comparative philosophy of mysticism, religion and the social sciences, contemporary spirituality, and religion and healing. In 2000, Barnard won the Golden Mustang Award for teaching and scholarship, and from 2002-2004 he was a member of SMU's Academy of Distinguished Teachers. He has published Exploring Unseen Worlds: William James and the Philosophy of Mysticism as well as an edited volume, Crossing Boundaries: Essays on the Ethical Status of Mysticism. He has also written many journal articles and book chapters on a variety of topics, such as pedagogy in religious studies, the nature of religious experience, and issues in the psychology of religion. He has recently completed a second monograph, Living Consciousness: Reclaiming the Intuitive Vision of Henri Bergson.
Courses Taught
HUMN 6204/6104 Sacred Places and Spiritual Practices
HUMN 6338 The Fire of Transformation: Exploring the Mystical Life
HUMN 6358 Trances and Dances: Investigations of Aboriginal Religious Life
Charlotte P. Barner
Dr. Charlotte Barner received an Ed.D. in Human & Organizational Learning from The George Washington University. Her master of education in Curriculum Design & Instructional Technologies is with honors from George Mason University; and her undergraduate degree in Business & Human Resources Administration is from Barry University.
Charlotte is honored to be the MLS faculty advisor for the Organizational Dynamics concentration. She has over 20 years of experience in the area of human and organizational learning and development. Prior to joining SMU, she held senior corporate leadership positions responsible for creating and implementing development strategies and systems. Most recently, she established and lead Organizational Effectiveness for one of North America's top sales and marketing companies with clients such as AT&T, Best Buy, Disney, HP, Microsoft, and Wal-Mart, as well as the major movie and gaming producers.
Her philosophy and passion is that the journey of learning and development--from the individual to the organizational level--can be filled with positive possibilities that result in a life of well-being. In addition to presenting at regional and national human resource and training conferences, Charlotte has authored several articles in professional journals. Most recently, she co-authored chapters on mindfulness, openness to experience, and transformational learning in the Handbook of Reciprocal Adult Development & Learning (Oxford Press, 2011) and Advances in Positive Organizational Psychology (Emerald, June 2013), and co-authored the book Building Better Teams: 70 Tools and Techniques for Strengthening Performance Within and Across Teams (Pfeiffer, 2012). She is a member of the Academy of Management, Managerial and Organizational Cognition Division; American Society for Training and Development; and Kappa Delta Pi International Honor Society in Education.
Courses Taught
BHSC 6300 Multicultural Applications to Teamwork and Teambuilding, INDIA (ORG, HUM, GLO, ACT)
BHSC 6308 Living Systems: An Introduction to Organizational Dynamics (ORG) (HUMN)
BHSC 6311 Exploring Human Potential (HUMN) (ORG)
BHSC 6304 The Transformative Power of Narratives (CMT) (HUMN) (ORG)
BHSC 7352 International Organizational Collaboration, Trinity College, Dublin, IRELAND (ORG)
Robert Barner
Dr. Robert Barner currently holds the position of Associate Director of Executive Education, within the School of Education and Human Development at Southern Methodist University. He is also a full-time lecturer within the School's Graduate Program of Dispute Mediation and Conflict Resolution, where he teaches graduate classes in executive coaching, team building, group facilitation, and organizational consulting.
Prior to joining SMU, Dr Barner held senior-level corporate HR positions for several different companies, with three of these position involving support to global operations. These roles included responsibilities for career planning, executive development, the assessment and development of high-potential leaders, managing intervention projects, and directing executive coaching assignments. Dr. Barner's work experience also includes management consulting to such companies as GTE, AT&T, Harris, Disney, Honeywell, and United Technologies.
Dr. Barner has presented to several international symposia and conferences, including the American Society for Training and Development, The Society for Human Resource Management, The World Future Society, and the OD Network. His articles on the subjects of career planning, executive coaching, executive development, and team building have appeared in such publications as The Wall Street Journal's National Business Employment Weekly, The OD Practitioner, Career Development International, Team Performance Management, HR Magazine, ad Training & Development.
Dr. Barner is the author of five books on the subjects of career development, leadership development and team building, with three foreign language translations. In addition, he has also been a contributor to several texts, including Annual Editions: Management 1997/98, 1998/99; McGraw-Hill), The Quality Yearbook 2001 Edition McGraw-Hill), Inside the Minds: Developing a Corporate Culture (2006, Aspatore Books), and The Handbook of Adult Development and Learning (2006; Oxford University Press).
Dr Barner holds a Masters and Doctorate in Organization Development, a Masters in Counseling Psychology, and Bachelors degrees in Education and Psychology.
Courses Taught
BHSC 6300 Multicultural Applications to Teamwork and Teambuilding, INDIA (ORG, HUM, GLO, ACT)
BHSC 7352 International Organizational Collaboration, Trinity College, Dublin, IRELAND (ORG)
Diane C. Betts
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Departments of Economics and History, Southern Methodist University, June 1992 to the present.
Dr. Betts is a First Vice President for Morgan Keegan & Co., Inc. and a Senior Investment Management Consultant where she provides research and analysis for high net worth individuals, employee benefit plans, and non-profit organizations. Since joining Morgan Keegan in 2000, she has served on the IMCG Advisory Council and is a member of the President's Club. She has been in the field of economics and finance since 1981.
Courses Taught
SOSC 6344 Contemporary Economic Issues
Richard R. Bozorth
Associate Professor of English
Dr. Richard Bozorth is Associate Professor, Vice Chair, and Director of Undergraduate Studies in English at SMU, and represents Dedman College in the Faculty Senate. He received his A.B. in English from Princeton University, and his M.A. And Ph.D. in English from the University of Virginia. Before coming to SMU in 1998, he taught at Virginia Commonwealth University, Texas Christian University. He has published articles on modernist literature, poetry, and LGBT writing, and is the author of Auden's Games of Knowledge: Poetry and the Meanings of Homosexuality (Columbia UP, 2001). He is currently completing a book on historical consciousness in modern lesbian and gay literature.
Courses Taught
HUMN 6115 Classic Texts: Shakespeare's Sonnets
HUMN 6309 Reading Poetry
HUMN 6361 Literature of Religious Reflection
HUMN 7320 Gay and Lesbian Literature
Caroline Brettell
Dr. Caroline Brettell is University Distinguished Professor at Southern Methodist University and a member of the faculty of the Department of Anthropology. She has served as Director of Women's Studies (1989-1994), Chair of the Department of Anthropology (1994-2004), and Interim Dean of Dedman College (2006-2008) She has written extensively on problems of international migration in general, and on aspects of Portuguese emigration in particular. Her most recent books are Civic Engagements: The Citizenship Practices of Indian and Vietnamese Immigrants (with Deborah Reed-Danahay); Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective (6th edition; co-edited with Carolyn Sargent); Citizenship, Immigration and Belonging: Immigrants in Europe and the United States (co-edited with Deborah Reed-Danahay) and Twenty-first Century Gateways: Immigrant Incorporation in Suburban America (co-edited with Audrey Singer and Susan W. Hardwick).
Courses Taught
BHSC 6363 The Immigrant Experience
Michael G. Callaghan
Dr. Callaghan is an anthropological archaeologist who received his Ph.D. in anthropology from Vanderbilt University in 2008. His research interests include the rise and collapse of complex societies, ceramic analysis, gender in archaeology, household archaeology, ritual, and prehistoric political economies. His primary research area is Mesoamerica and the Maya lowlands of Guatemala but he has also conducted fieldwork in Tennessee and Honduras. He has served as archaeologist, lab-director, and Co-Director of the Vanderbilt Cancuen Regional Archaeological Project located in Cancuen, Guatemala. He performed his dissertation research and served as project ceramicist on the Holmul Regional Archaeological Project in Holmul, Guatemala. Callaghan is now Co-Director of the Holtun Archaeological Project located in the Central Peten Lakes Region of Guatemala. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities, and Vanderbilt University. He is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor in the department of Anthropology at SMU. Before coming to SMU Callaghan taught anthropology courses at Vanderbilt University, Sweet Briar College, and the University of Texas at Arlington. Callaghan has authored articles pertaining to his research in both English and Spanish. Forthcoming publications include a co-edited volume The Inalienable in the Archaeology of Mesoamerica published by the American Anthropological Association, and chapters in forthcoming books including Gendered Labor in Specialized Economies published by the University Press of Colorado and Maya Ceramic Style and Interaction published by the University Press of Florida.
Courses Taught
HUMN 6315 Gender and Sex in Archeology
Brad Carter
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science
Bradley Kent Carter received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1972. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and has been at SMU since 1970. He has taught in the MLS program for many years.
Carter's teaching and research interests include political thought, organization theory, American and British politics, and institutional development. He has written on James Madison and Mary Parker Follett.
Mr. Carter has served as President of the Faculty senate and was Chief Marshal of the University for nineteen years. He has received both the M Award and the Willis M. Tate Award and was twice selected as a Rotunda Outstanding Professor.
Courses Taught
SOSC 6343 Politics of a Capitalist Democracy
SOSC 6248 The Changing Landscape of Political Thought
Rev. Dr. Jaime Clark-Soles
Rev. Dr. Jaime Clark-Soles has taught New Testament at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University since 2001. She received her B.A. from Stetson University where she studied Philosophy and Russian Studies. She earned her M.Div. from Yale Divinity School and her Ph.D. in New Testament from Yale University. Her specialties include: The Johannine Literature (the Gospel of John; 1, 2, and 3 John; and Revelation); Evil, Suffering, Death, and Afterlife in the New Testament; and The Use of Scripture in Moral Debate.
She is the author of numerous essays both in print and online, including workingpreacher.org and The Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-dr-jaime-clarksoles). She has published three books: Engaging the Word: The New Testament and the Christian Believer (WJK, 2010), Death and the Afterlife in the New Testament (T&T Clark, 2006), and Scripture Cannot Be Broken (E.J. Brill, 2003). Dr. Clark-Soles enjoys speaking widely and writing for both academic and popular audiences.
She also appears in the recently released movie Hellbound? (http://www.hellboundthemovie.com). Her current research involves the intersection of Disability Studies and the interpretation of the Bible. In 2010 she was awarded the Ford Senior Research Fellowship. As an ordained American Baptist minister, Rev. Clark-Soles has served in both parish and hospice settings. When not pondering the Bible and culture, she's at the gym playing racquetball and is sponsored by Ektelon, maker of fine racquetball equipment.
Courses Taught
HUMN 7355 Evil, Suffering and Death in the New Testament
Edward Countryman
SMU Distinguished Professor of History Ph.D. Cornell, 1971
Dr. Edward Countryman has been teaching at SMU since 1991, after spending four years in New Zealand and twenty in the UK. He's been involved with this program almost that long and has taught classes in book acknowledgements. Best known as a scholar of the American Revolution, he published Enjoy the Same Liberty: Black Americans in the Revolutionary Era early in 1912. His strong interest now is Woodland Indians in the age of their encounter with Europeans and Africans. He is working on a large book about how they came to understand the developing colonial situation and the world outside America. He loves classical music, opera, art galleries, and hiking. He's also a keen distance runner, with four marathons since 2007 and training underway for his fifth, in Philadelphia in November, 2012.
Courses Taught
SOSC 6314 American Revolution
SOSC 6316 Farms, Plantations & Towns
SOSC 6327 American Citizenship
SOSC 6350 First-Person American Lives
SOSC 7308 The Great Encounter: How Indians and Europeans Met
Joan Davidow
Maybe you've heard Joan Davidow during drive time on KERA's Morning Edition or during All Things Considered. Her commentaries about today's art and the urban environment air monthly. Or maybe you heard her insightful arts reviews in the 1980s during her six years as weekly broadcaster on KERA 90.1, when she also aired national stories on NPR. Director Emerita after nine years as Dallas Contemporary Director, Davidow transformed the local arts space into a non-collecting contemporary museum, raising $4.4 million in capital funds to purchase and move it to its heady industrial quarters in the Design District. Gaining national attention, The Wall Street Journal recognized Dallas Contemporary as a respected museum for presenting group exhibitions of young artists to watch. The international magazine, ArtNews, spotlighted Davidow's prior ten years at the Arlington Museum of Art for developing Texas' premier venue for cutting-edge art. Statewide recognition came with a Texas Monthly profile naming Davidow the most imaginative and adventurous museum director working in Texas. Locally, D Magazine in its 25th anniversary issue claimed Davidow almost single-handedly carved one of the best modern art museums in Texas. With a strong commitment to Texas artists, Davidow curated 75 exhibitions advancing the careers of 300 artists. Her great dedication to making art accessible culminated in the nationally awarded Art Think™ program she authored, teaching all ages to think creatively about contemporary art. Seventy-five graphic design awards during her double museum career attest to the high quality catalogues and publications she produced. With an MFA degree in painting from the University of Florida and a BA in English from Jacksonville University, Davidow began her museum career at the Dallas Museum of Art as a McDermott Curatorial Intern in Contemporary Art. In 1994, she was selected to attend the University of California, Berkeley, for the prestigious Museum Management Institute (MMI) funded by The J. Paul Getty Trust. Davidow comes to SMU|MLS to initiate two courses in approaching contemporary art and share her vibrant love of the art of our day.
Courses Taught
FNAR 6313 Contemporary Art
FNAR 6333 Approaching Contemporary Art: Post WWII (1950-1980)
Silvio De Santis
Dr. De Santis received his Ph.D. in Medieval History from the University of Cagliari (Italy). Before he moved to the United States he taught graduate and undergraduate courses at the University of Tuscia in Viterbo (Italy) for six years. His interests range from Italy to the Western Mediterranean during the late Middle Ages. He specializes in agrarian history, social history, history of nutrition and medieval slavery. His research focuses on Italian rural and social history from the 11th to 14th Centuries. From 2006 to 2008, he was a member of the Scientific Committee at Istituto Superiore di Studi Medievali "Cecco d'Ascoli" - Ascoli Piceno. He attended several congresses and his researches were published in the main Italian historical journals as "Bullettino dell'Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medioevo" and "Rivista di Storia dell'Agricoltura"or in miscellaneous studies. He recently published a volume by the "Istituto di Storia e Arte del Lazio Meridionale" (Anagni, Italy), which offers original insights into land Lordship and agrarian topics on the border between the States of the Church and the Kingdom of Naples. Professor De Santis is currently proofing a most noteworthy book that will be issued by the History Department at University of Sassari (Italy). The book addresses complex questions on economic sides, social conflicts, colonial policies, family strategies, agriculture production, men/environment relations, in Italy, its isles, and the Kingdom of Aragon (11th-14th C).
Courses Taught
SOSC 6319 The Medieval City
SOSC 7318 Man and Food: History of Nourishment through the Middle
Melissa Dowling
Dr. Dowling received her Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1995. Professor Dowling is interested in the ways in which Romans responded to the end of democratic Republican government and the rise of Roman Imperial society. She finds that this transition resulted in a new ideal of clemency to balance the cruel abuses of power in the Roman empire. Her first book, Clemency and Cruelty in the Roman World, explores the spread of clementia as a popular virtue, ultimately influencing early Christian ideals of mercy.
Dowling's current research examines the connection between ancient ideas of immortality and changing Roman conceptions of time and temporality. In particular, she is investigating the contributions of the Egyptian cult of Isis to Roman ideas of the afterlife, an important predecessor to Christian beliefs in heaven and hell. She has presented her conclusions on several occasions and they have also been published as articles.
Courses Taught
HUMN 7301 Greek Mythology and Literature
SOSC 6305 The History of Time
SOSC 6310 Dignitas and Decadence: Society and Culture in Imperial Rome
SOSC 6336 Ancient Near East and Egypt
Martinella M. Dryburgh
Dr. Dryburgh received her Ph.D. from The University of Texas at Dallas. Prior to that, she earned a Master of Liberal Arts (now Master of Liberal Studies) degree as well as a Graduate Certificate in Dispute Resolution from Southern Methodist University. Her undergraduate degree in Business Administration is from The University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Dryburgh's current research examines technology's impact on societies and individuals. Specifically, she studies issues centering on the distinction between public and private spaces on the Internet. The focus of her dissertation was how social media affects civil servants and public service ethics. Her dissertation was nominated by UTD for the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration Annual Dissertation Award. Her previous research has appeared in PA Times and Public Integrity, the premier journal of ethics and leadership in public service. Dr. Dryburgh actively supports the MLS program by regularly speaking at information sessions and encouraging potential students to explore the liberal arts.
Courses Taught
HUMN 6304 Technology, Humanity and Identity
Vasu Duvvury
Dr. Vasu Duvvury holds an M.A. in English, and received an M.A. and Ph.D. in Anthropology from Rice University. She held a fellowship at Rice and received scholarships to conduct research abroad from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, the Smithsonian, and the American Institute of Indian Studies. Her primary areas of research are: gender studies, linguistic anthropology, urban studies, peoples and cultures of Asia, art and culture, and medical anthropology. She has extensive research and teaching experience and has taught both ESL and Anthropology in various institutions like Rice University, Houston Community College, Austin College, Collin College, the University of North Texas, and the University of Texas at Dallas. Her publications include a book, Play, Symbolism, and Ritual and several research papers. She is currently working on two books: one is an ethnography and the other one deals with the changing family structures in urban Asia. She is also an award winning photographer.
Courses Taught
SOSC 7351 Gender in a Global Society: Tradition and Change
Yolette Garcia
A summa cum laude graduate of Southern Methodist University, with a Masters of Arts degree in Art History. She received her undergraduate degree in Art History from Wellesley College, Wellesley, Mass.
Yolette recently joined the Annette Caldwell Simmons School of Education and Human Development at Southern Methodist University in Dallas as Assistant Dean for External Affairs and Outreach. She's responsible for identifying and prioritizing community partnerships and projects for the School. She also develops strategies for communications and promotion.
Garcia comes to her position as a veteran public broadcasting journalist and manager for KERA television and radio, the North Texas public broadcasting station. She served the public broadcasting organization in various capacities for 25 years. In her most recent position, Garcia supervised the creation of a new arts unit for radio and Web. Prior to this she directed Communications/Marketing, Web, the Educational Resource Center and community outreach for all of KERA's content areas (Radio, Television, Web and Education). She has served as Assistant Station Manager of KERA 90.1, and News Director. As such, she managed the activities of the radio staff, and provided editorial guidance and oversight for the News department. She also supervised joint Radio and TV journalism projects for local and national broadcast.
Courses Taught
HUMN 6395 Consuming News in the Digital Age
Dianne Goode
PhD, Humanities, The University of Texas at Dallas; M.A., Art History, Southern Methodist University; B.A., Art History, The University of Texas at Austin
Dr. Dianne Goode has been a member of the MLS faculty since 1981, and has served multiple terms on the MLS Academic Council. She is an art historian who regularly teaches courses on Italian Renaissance and Baroque art and architecture, and modern painting. She also teaches two-week summer courses abroad in Italy and France, offering MLS students an extraordinary and memorable opportunity to experience the magnificent artworks in their historical and cultural contexts.
Dr. Goode lectures widely to school, church, and civic groups, most frequently on Christian imagery. Her research involves multiple aspects of Italian art: Marian imagery, the relationship between devotional texts and images, the development of altarpiece imagery, and the role of narrative.
Courses Taught
SMU Campus:
FNAR 6115 Manet's Bar at the Folies Bergere
FNAR 6309 Art of the Italian Reniassance
FNAR 6317 Art of the Baroque
FNAR 6322 Modern Movements in European and American Painting
Abroad:
FNAR 6308 Renaissance and Baroque Art in Italy
FNAR 6323 Modern Painting in France: Paris and Provence
Randy Gordon
B.A., M.A., Ph.D., Kansas; J.D., Washburn; LL.M., Columbia; Ph.D., Edinburgh
Dr. Randy Gordon is a partner in the Antitrust Group of Gardere Wynne Sewell LLP, where he has also served as the Firm's first Professional Development Partner. He is a past Faculty Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh, an Adjunct Professor of Law and Lecturer in English at Southern Methodist University, a fellow of the Dallas Institute of Humanities, and a member of the Advisory Board of the Hiett Prize, the largest humanities-specific prize in the U.S. His professional activities include service as Immediate Past Chair of the State Bar of Texas Antitrust & Business Litigation Section, a member of the Professionalism Committee of the Legal Education Section of the ABA, a member and former board member of the Professional Development Consortium, and an elected member of both the Society of Writers to Her Majesty's Signet and the American Law Institute. Randy is also an Advisory Board Member of the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, the Hall Center for the Humanities, and the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas and a Key Collaborator in the Beyond Text project at the University of Edinburgh School of Law. A frequent lecturer and writer, he is the Senior Host of “The Writer's Studio,“ a series of interviews with contemporary authors broadcast throughout the country by KERA/National Public Radio. He is recognized in antitrust by both Chambers & Partners and Who's Who Legal. For more information, visit: http://www.gardere.com/Attorneys/Attorney_Bio/?id=1414
Courses Taught
HUMN 6115/Classic Texts: Marcel Proust and the Modern Tradition: Literature, Philosophy, Art
HUMN 6115/Classic Texts: Discovering Proust: Swann's Way and the Texture of Memory
HUMN 6318 Americans in Paris: The Lost Generation and Its Milieu
HUMN 6378 Literature of the Great Plains: A Study in Environment
HUMN 6390 Law and Literature: Parallel Interpretive Strategies
Magdalena Grohman
Associate Director of the Center for Values in Medicine, Science and Technology, UT Dallas; Lecturer in the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, UT Dallas; Consultant and Visiting Expert in creativity at the Center for Creative Connections, Dallas Museum of Art
Dr. Magdalena Grohman received her MA and Ph.D. in psychology from Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. Her research background is in creative thinking, problem solving and education. Her core interest is to propagate creative thinking as part of a life-span education. Dr. Grohman has more than 15 years of experience in leading workshops on creative-thinking techniques and creative problem solving, both in commercial and educational settings, for gifted and talented children, university students and adults. Since the 2007, Dr. Grohman has been leading Summer Seminars on creative thinking for teachers at the Dallas Museum of Art. In the fall of 2010, together with the DMA's Center for Creative Connections staff and visiting artists, she has started Think Creatively! workshops for the Dallas Museum of Art visitors. She has published several chapters and articles on creativity, both in Polish and English, and is an active member of the Society for the Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts. Currently, Dr. Grohman is an associate director of the Center for Values in Medicine, Science and Technology and a lecturer at the School of Behavior and Brain Sciences at University of Texas, Dallas, where she does research and teaches a course on psychology of creativity.
Courses Taught
BHSC 6374 Psychology of Creativity
Rabbi David S. Gruber
Rabbi Gruber is a native of Evanston, Illinois, and an eighth generation rabbi. He grew up in Israel, where he served as a tank gunner in the IDF Armored Corps, and attended Yeshivat Sha'alvim, one of the most prominent institutions of higher Jewish learning in Israel. He holds a B.A. in History from Thomas Edison State College, and an M.S. in Educational Leadership from Walden University. He has served in educational and religious leadership positions in the Jewish community on three continents. He is the only person to date to be ordained both by the Chief Rabbis of Israel, and the Humanist Society.
Courses Taught
HUMN 7301 How the People of the Book Read It
HUMN 7358 Jews and Judaism in Modern Israel
Maria Reis Habito
Dr. Maria Reis Habito is International Program Director of the Museum of World Religions in Taipei, Taiwan, organizing symposia and conferences on interfaith themes from her Dallas office. Authorized Zen Teacher in the Sanbo Kyodan lineage, she is an advisor to the Fetzer Institute Council on World Religions and Spiritualities, and has also served as Adjunct Faculty member of the Department of History and also of the Master of Liberal Studies Program at SMU, having taught courses in East Asian History and other subjects related to Asian Religions and Spirituality. She received her PhD from the University of Munich, and also studied in Taipei, Taiwan, and Kyoto, Japan. Her published works include academic titles in German, and edited works such as Heart to Heart: Buddhist Muslim Dialogues in Ladakh 2010, and Listening: Buddhist Muslim Dialogues 2002-2004, (MWR: Taipei, Taiwan) as well as numerous articles in scholarly journals.
Courses Taught
HUMN 7361 Spiritual and Mystical Paths: A Multi-Faith Exploration
Ruben L. F. Habito
Dr. Ruben L. F. Habito received his Doctor of Letters Certificate, Tokyo University; S.T.L., Sophia University, 1978; M.Lit.,
Professor of World Religions and Spirituality
Tokyo University, 1975; B.A., Ateneo de Manila University, 1969.
His teaching specialties include: World religions, East Asian Buddhism, theology of religions and comparative theology, interreligious perspectives in spirituality and mysticism. Research Interests: Japanese medieval Buddhism, themes in comparative theology, spirituality and socio-ecological engagement. Publications include Experiencing Buddhism: Ways of Wisdom and Compassion (Orbis Books, 2005); Living Zen, Loving God (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2004); "Compassion Out of Wisdom: Buddhist Perspectives from the Past toward the Human Future," in Stephen Post, et.al., eds., Altruism and Altruistic Love (Oxford University Press, 2002); Healing Breath: Zen Spirituality for a Wounded Earth (MKZC Publications, 2001); and Originary Enlightenment: Tendai Hongaku Doctrine and Japenese Buddhism (International Institute for Advanced Buddhist Studies, 1996). Professional Distinctions: President, Society for Buddhist Christian Studies, 2003-2005; Henry Luce III Fellow in Theology, 1995-96.
Courses Taught
HUMN 7361 Spiritual and Mystical Paths: A Multi-Faith Exploration
Rick Halperin
"There is no such thing as a lesser person."
Dr. Rick Halperin is Director of the Southern Methodist University Human Rights Education Program (http://www.smu.edu/humanrights/), and teaches courses at SMU including: America's Dilemma: The Struggle for Human Rights; America and the Age of Genocide; and America Enraged: From Brown to Watergate, 1954-1974.
Halperin has served on the Board of Directors of Amnesty International USA from 1989-1995, and again from 2004-2010; he served as Chair of the Board from 1992-1993 and again from 2005-2007. He is also a member of the National Death Penalty Advisory Committee, the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty and the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (serving as President from 2000-2006 and from 2007 to present).
Halperin has been involved in many human rights monitoring projects, including an Amnesty International delegation which investigated the conditions of the Terrell Unit (Texas death row facility) in Livingston, Texas. In 1998, he was eyewitness to a lethal injection execution in the death chamber in Huntsville, Texas. Halperin also participated in a U.N. Human Rights delegation and inspected prison conditions in Dublin, Ireland, and Belfast, Northern Ireland for a report by the Irish Prison Commission, and he participated in a human rights monitoring delegation in El Salvador in 1987.
In addition to his work against the death penalty, Halperin is also active in other areas of human rights. He works with a variety of organizations which seek improvements in human rights on behalf of women, children, gays and lesbians, indigenous persons, survivors of torture, imprisoned political prisoners of conscience and human rights defenders, journalists, and healthcare professionals who are under non-stop assault by governments around the world.
Halperin leads groups of interested persons, including students, faculty, and community members, on human rights educational journeys three times each year to places such as Argentina, Cambodia, Rwanda, South Africa, El Salvador, Bosnia, and numerous Holocaust sites across Europe. Every December he takes a group to death camps and other Holocaust sites in Poland for two weeks. These trips are designed to pay tribute, in part, to those men, women and children who were destroyed in the camps, as well as to honor those who survived the experience. It was, and remains, necessary to remember that the human spirit is capable of enduring and vanquishing the most unimaginable horrors that humanity can produce.
Halperin received his Ph.D. from Auburn University, his M.A. from Southern Methodist University and his B.A. from George Washington University. He is frequently interviewed on television and radio as well as by print media, and he speaks nationally and internationally on a wide range of human rights issues including genocide and the death penalty.
Courses Taught
SOSC 6309 Struggle for Human Rights
SOSC 6355 America: Integration-Watergate
SOSC 7303 In the Camps
SOSC 7305 Special Topics in Human Rights: The Holocaust
SOSC 7316 Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia
SOSC 7317 Human Rights: Japan
Janet Harris
Dr. Harris has taught literature and writing for over twenty-five years with special emphasis on the connection between learning from other writers and application of that knowledge to writing projects. She has helped more than 100 writers develop, edit, and publish their work and has guided more than 85 books into print for literary and mass markets. Co-author of a literature and composition text, she has published articles, monographs, and reviews.
Courses Taught
FNAR 6306 Reading to Write: Learning from the Masters
FNAR 6396 Time Past, Time Present Storytelling with a Backdrop of History
HUMN 6115 Classic Texts: Portrait of a Lady, Invisible Man, Short Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe, Short Fiction of Eudora Welty, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Heart of Darkness, Angle of Repose, All the King's Men, The House of Seven Gables, and Billy Budd
HUMN 6370 The Literate Mind at Work
HUMN 6373 American Regional Literature, including Texas Literature, Literature of the Southwest, Literature of the West, Literature of the South, Literature of New England
Holly Hill
Dr. Holly Hill is Emerita Professor of Speech & Theater at John Jay College of The City University of New York and former New York Theatre Corresondent for The Times of London. Her most recent book, Salaam.Peace: an Anthology of Middle Eastern American Theatre, was co-edited with Egyptian scholar Dina Amin.
Courses Taught
HUMN 7304 Middle Eastern American Literature
Leroy Howe
Dr. Leroy Howe is Professor emeritus of Pastoral Theology at SMU's Perkins School of Theology, where he taught courses in theology and pastoral care and counseling, including dream interpretation, for 30 years. He now teaches regularly in the MLS program. Dr. Howe's published writings include eight books and numerous articles and reviews in academic, professional, and general audience journals and magazines. His website, HoweAbout.com, contains twice monthly articles on faith, theology, and everyday living.
Courses Taught
HUMN 6323 The Significance of Dreams
HUMN 6340 Psychoanalysis and Religion
Robert Hunt
Director of Global Theological Education
Dr. Robert Hunt was born in Dallas, Texas, in 1955. After attending school in Austin and Richardson, he majored in History at the University of Texas in Austin. After completing a Master of Theology at Perkins School of Theology (SMU) he served as associate pastor of the Bethany United Methodist Church in Austin, Texas. He and his wife Lilian were married in 1979. Lilian is a native of Sarawak, Malaysia who attended Martin College, SMU, and the University of Texas. She is a music therapist practicing in the Dallas area. They have two children. Naomi is a graduate of Boston University and the Diplomatic Academy of the University of Vienna and is currently working in Vienna. Elliott is a graduate in Middlesex University and works in London.
In 1984 Robert and Lilian became missionaries with the General Board of Global Ministry. In 1985 they moved to the Philippines and then Kuala Lumpur, where they taught at the Seminary Theology Malaysia. At STM Robert was the director of extension education, and taught a wide variety of courses. He was also an editor of the current Malay translation of the Bible. He received a Ph.D. in History from the University of Malaya in 1993, focusing on the history of Bible translation and Christian Muslim relations. From 1993 to 1997 Robert and Lilian taught at the Trinity Theological College, where Robert taught world religions and directed the education by extension and field education programs. From 1997 to 2004 he was pastor of the English Speaking United Methodist Church of Vienna, and an adjunct professor at Webster University in Vienna in Religions and International Studies. Dr. Hunt is presently Director of Global Theological Education at the Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University. He lectures on World Religions, Christian missions, and Islam. He is author of books on Malaysian Church history, and more recently works on Islam including: Islam in Southeast Asia, Muslim Faith and Values: What Every Christian Should Know and Muslim Citizens of the Globalized World. He has also published articles in a number of journals and reference works. His current projects include a study of Christian identity in religiously plural contexts, a study on the relationship of Muslim identity to power-sharing in secular societies. He participated in diverse conferences on Christian Muslim dialogue in Malaysia, Indonesia, Austria, Macedonia, Spain, and the United States.
"The focus of my professional life, as a teacher and pastor, has been interpretation: helping people understand one another, their history, different cultures and religions, and themselves. I believe that every person, culture, and society has something valuable to offer to others, and that we discover this through critical and appreciative study, open dialogue, and a willingness to learn."
Courses Taught
HUMN 7312 Islam, State & Society
HUMN 7315 Religions of the East
Michael Keevak
Dr. Michael Keevak received his B.A. (English and History) from Columbia and his Ph.D. (Renaissance Studies) from Yale, and since 1992 has been teaching in Taiwan, where he is a Professor of Foreign Languages at National Taiwan University. He has published four books, including three on the history of Western perceptions of the Far East. His most recent publication is Becoming Yellow: A Short History of Racial Thinking, published by Princeton University Press in 2011.
Courses Taught
SOSC 7355 The History of Racial Thinking to 1850
Harold Knight
Dr. Harold Knight earned a Bachelor of Music degree in organ performance from the 
University of Redlands in California. He has an M.A. in music composition from California State University at Los Angeles. His PhD is in Organ Literature (musicology) from the University of Iowa. He has been organist at churches in California, Iowa, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Texas. He has also directed choruses in churches in those churches and was the founder of the chorus of Bunker Hill Community College.
While his degrees are in specific areas of music performance, his musical passion is for making connections between music and society. He has taught at Salem State College in Salem, Massachusetts, the University of Texas at Dallas, and several of the DCCC colleges in Dallas. From 1987-1994 he was chairman of the music department at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston. In all of those positions he developed courses in the place of music in society—American Women in Music, Music of Latin America, and History of American Musical Theater.
His favorite of those specialty courses is Music as Propaganda which he taught at Bunker Hill Community College and at the University of Texas at Dallas.
Courses Taught
FNAR 7362 Western Music as Propaganda
Camille Kraeplin
Dr. Camille Kraeplin spent nearly a decade working as a food writer/restaurant critic and features editor for publications including The Dallas Morning News and Texas Monthly. She developed an interest in studying media representations of racial and ethnic groups while working as a newspaper reporter in Johannesburg, South Africa. Her research focuses on the intersection of race, ethnicity, class and gender and how these factors affect both media use and portrayals, especially portrayals of women. Kraeplin also completed one of the first broad-based studies of media convergence. She is the author of a number of journal articles and book chapters and often presents her work at conferences. She enjoys teaching such critical studies courses as "Women & Minorities in the Media" and "Human Rights & the Journalist" for the Journalism Division, and was recently named director of Meadows new Fashion Media minor. She received both her master's and doctorate in Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin.
Courses Taught
HUMN 6311 Objectivity and Bias in News
LaiYee Leong
Research Fellow at the John G. Tower Center for Political Studies
Dr. Leong received her B.A. (1994) and Ph.D. in Political Science (2008) from Yale University. At SMU, Dr. Leong teaches undergraduate courses in Comparative Politics, the Politics of Southeast Asia, the Politics of the Middle East, and the Politics of Islam. She also teaches an SMU-in-Bali Study Abroad course on Politics and Religions, as well as courses for the Continuing and Professional Education program. Dr. Leong's scholarship focuses on Islamic groups and ideological change; she is working on a book analyzing how such groups in Indonesia played a positive role in the country's democratization. She most recently contributed a chapter on Islam and the Indonesian state to a forthcoming volume titled "Sacred Matters, Stately Concerns: Essays on Faith and Politics in Asia." Dr. Leong's other research interests include regime transitions, social movements, and development. Dr. Leong is a native of Singapore, but has lived in various parts of the U.S. for two decades. Outside of academia, she has professional experience working as a news journalist covering political developments in Southeast Asia.
Courses Taught
SOSC 6302 Democracy and Development in Southeast Asia
Bruce Levy
PhD in American Studies from Brown University
Dr. Levy has published articles on late nineteenth century American Literature and Culture and the history of American social reform. He is currently completing a book on the Midwest and American Modernism, and is at work on a new book on the idea of economic freedom within American culture. At SMU, he directs the Center for Academic-Community Engagement, which involves students in coursework that engages them as well in community work. He teaches courses on Adolescence in America, Social Class and Democracy, the idea of "community" as both a lived and imagined experience, and the literatures of minorities.
Courses Taught
HUMN 6397 Troubled Youth: Educating the Young in America
HUMN 7303 The Culture of Rock and Roll
John Lewis
After undergraduate and graduate studies in English and American Language and Literature at Harvard, where he was a member of Lowell House and a Junior Fellow in the Society of Fellows, John Lewis joined the SMU English Department in 1970, specializing in American Literature. From the first he has been heavily involved in the design and teaching of general education courses at SMU, and this involvement has led him to broaden his interests to include work in Western cultural and intellectual history from the Greeks forward, with a speccial interest in early modern America and Europe. He has also designed and taught courses in poetry, creative and expository writing, and linguistics. His current course offerings in the MLS program include "Shakespeare from Page to Stage," "The Muse in Arms: War and the Literary Imagination," "A Book of Begettings: the Bible and Literature," "Remembering the Sixties," "Tell About the South: Voices in Faulkner's Novels," "Our Stories, Ourselves: Journaling as a Path to Self-Discovery," "Reading Darwin: An Introduction to his Major Works," and "Writing and the Search for Self." His current research interests center on the nineteenth-century roots of American modernism and the contemporary writer Thomas Pynchon.
Courses Taught
HUMN 6106 Reading Darwin: An Introduction to his Major Works
HUMN 6310 Tell About the South: Voices in Faulkner's Novels
HUMN 6313 Shakespeare from Page to Stage
HUMN 6328 The Muse in Arms: War and the Literary Imagination
HUMN 6335 A Book of Begettings: the Bible and Literature
HUMN 6354 Remembering the Sixties
HUMN 6374 Writing and the Search for Self
HUMN 6376 Our Stories, Ourselves: Journaling as a Path to Self-Discovery
HUMN 7356 Darwin in His Time and Ours
Michael Lindsey
Dr. Michael Lindsey is a lawyer and clinical psychologist. He received his B.A. degrees in psychology and political science from Johnson C. Smith University (Charlotte, N.C.). His Masters degrees were earned at the University of Louisville (teaching), and the University of Alabama (clinical-correctional psychology). Dr. Lindsey's legal studies were completed at Villanova Law School (Villanova, Pa), and his doctorate in clinical psychology was awarded at Hahnemann University (Philadelphia, Pa.).
Dr. Lindsey is an adjunct professor in the department of psychology, at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX; adjunct professor at the University of Nevada - Reno; and adjunct faculty for The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, in Reno, Nevada. He is a member of the Juvenile Justice Committee of the American Bar Association, and a member of the American Psychological Association. Dr. Lindsey serves as a consultant to numerous juvenile and judicial organizations.
Courses Taught
BSHC 6322 Abnormal Psychology of Mind, Body and Health
BHSC 6331 Psychology of Hate
Nancy Cain Marcus
A native of Dallas, Texas, is active in city, state, national and international affairs. Recipient of a Presidential appointment to the United Nations as a Public Delegate to the 56th Session of the General Assembly, Dr. Nancy Cain Marcus began a one-year senior diplomatic post at UN headquarters in New York the day before the September 11 terrorist attacks. Occupying the U.S. seat in the General Assembly and serving on the Human Rights Committee, Nancy Cain Marcus lobbied for U.S. candidates, positions and policies within the UN, and spoke formally and extemporaneously on a regular basis throughout her tenure in addresses that included her published October 22, 2001 statement on the Advancement of Women at the Fourth World Conference on Women. To date, Dr. Nancy Cain Marcus has also received a total of three gubernatorial appointments to both the State of Texas Special Commission on 21st Century Colleges and Universities and also the Board of Directors of Humanities Texas, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
With a doctorate from the Institute of Philosophic Studies, University of Dallas, Nancy Cain Marcus served at the University as an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Literature. She pursues her long-held commitment to public school teachers as a Visiting Professor at the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture, where she is an annual guest lecturer and professor at the Summer Teachers Academy. Dr. Nancy Cain Marcus has also served as a Trustee of The Hockaday School, a member of the Board at the Libraries of Southern Methodist University and on the Boards of Visitors at both Columbia and Duke Universities. Nancy Cain Marcus currently serves on two boards at Southern Methodist University, both for the Tate Lecture Series and the John Goodwin Tower Center for Political Studies.
As a civic leader, Dr. Nancy Cain Marcus participates broadly in community organizations, serving on the Boards of the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts Foundation as a charter member, The Trinity Trust, Dallas Committee on Foreign Relations, and the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture, where she is a Fellow and was named a Life Trustee. On a national level, Dr. Nancy Cain Marcus currently serves on the Madison Council of the Library of Congress and also on an advisory council for the Council on Foreign Relations. Internationally, Nancy Cain Marcus is a member of the Board of Directors of the American Friends of Versailles and has recently been invited to be a Visiting Scholar of the American Academy in Rome.
Dr. Nancy Cain Marcus has travelled extensively, participating in official delegations to South Africa on behalf of the City of Dallas, Tunisia at the invitation of the World Affairs Council, and Jordan with Bridges of Understanding, an organization dedicated to peace in the Middle East. Having studied in Greece, Italy, France, India and China, Nancy Cain Marcus has also broadened her understanding of international affairs through extensive travel to Eastern and Western Europe, Asia, Africa, United Kingdom, Australia, Central and South America and the Middle East.
Courses Taught
HUMN 6316 The Human Experience: An Introduction to Graduate Liberal Studies
Marsha McCoy
Dr. Marsha McCoy has degrees from Bryn Mawr College, Oxford University, Harvard University, and Yale University, and has taught at Harvard, Yale, New York University, and elsewhere. She has held a Fulbright Fellowship at the University in Munich, Germany, and a Mellon Fellowship at New York University, and has received scholarships for study at the American School of Classical Studies, Athens, Greece, as well as at the American Numismatic Society in New York City. She has been a finalist numerous times for the National Collegiate Teaching Award of the American Philological Association.
Her areas of interest include Cicero and the late Roman Republic, the subject of her doctoral dissertation and a book in preparation, Augustan ideology, Petronius and cultural politics under Nero, Apuleius and Roman culture in the 2nd c. CE, Roman numismatics, Roman law, as well as Greek culture and civilization.
She has developed and taught a wide variety of courses in Classical languages, literature, history, and civilization, and has been awarded grants by NITLE (National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education) and Sunoikisis (southern consortium of liberal arts colleges) to help create and teach nationally podcast and other technology-enhanced courses. She received a grant from the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, DC, to participate in workshops on incorporating into existing courses the Reacting to the Past curriculum, wherein students assume the roles of historic personalities at pivotal points in history and replay the historical moment to reconfigure the outcome. She uses films and other media in her courses and regularly supplements her teaching with a wide variety of field trips to plays, museums, and other events.
She has travelled extensively throughout Europe and the Mediterranean, including archaeological trips to Turkey and Egypt. She has visited Greece and Italy many times; most recently she co-lead a student and alumni group on a three and a half week study trip to mainland Greece and Crete. She has given numerous papers and invited lectures at national and international conferences, and has published widely in her fields.
Courses Taught
HUMN 6328 Love and Transformation
HUMN 7333 Reading Plato in Gatsby
SOSC 7313 Athens and Democracy: The Great Experiment
Njoki McElroy
A graduate of Xavier University in New Orleans, she received her masters and PhD from the School of Speech at Northwestern University.
Dr. McElroy taught at Northwestern for 35 years and developed Black Literature courses. She began teaching in the Master of Liberal Studies program in 1987. Dr. McElroy has enriched the MLS program for many years with her background and passion for teaching. A noted folklorist, storyteller and published author and playwright, Njoki has performed throughout the US, Africa, Europe and the Caribbean. With a strong concern for outreach cultural programs for underserved communities, McElroy founded the "Back Home Folk Festival" an annual folk art festival for Texas and Illinois. Her plays explore the historical and sociological experiences of African Americans as entertainers. She recently completed a memoir of her life growing up in Texas during the Jim Crow years, coming of age in New Orleans and migrating to Chicago during the Great Migration period.
Courses Taught
HUMN 6330 Wit and Humor In African America Literature
HUMN 6350 The Art of African American Storytelling
HUMN 6351 Interpretation /Performance of African American Poetry
HUMN 6352 The Influence of Folklore on African American Fiction
Thomas R. McFaul
Dr. Thomas McFaul received his Ph.D. from Boston University in Sociology of Religion and Social Ethics. During his academic career of more than 40 years, he has taught a broad range of courses on several campuses, received 2 teaching awards, and held numerous administrative positions.
His scholarly interests combine Sociology, Ethics, Philosophy, and Religion. He is an emeritus faculty member at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois in Ethics and Religious Studies. He also has a passion for studying the future and is a long-standing member of the World Future Society. He has published many articles and 6 books, including a trilogy on the future: The Future of Peace and Justice in the Global Village: The Role of World Religions in the Twenty-First Century (2006), The Future of Truth and Freedom in the Global Village: Modernism and the Challenges of the Twenty-First Century (2010), and The Future of God in the Global Village: Spirituality in an Age of Terrorism and Beyond (2011).
In addition to his teaching and scholarship, Dr. McFaul has extensive administrative experience in creating new courses and programs. He has served as the Director of Human Sciences at the University of Houston/Clear lake, Dean of the Yale Gordon College of liberal Arts-University of Baltimore, and Vice President for Academic Affairs at George William College. His lifelong commitment to an interdisciplinary method of learning has led him to look for ways to combine multiple viewpoints that stretch beyond the boundaries of academic disciplines while integrating their best insights. Courses Taught: BHSC 6319 Professional Ethics and Organizational Responsibility SCCL 6303 Bioethics and Public Policy
Courses Taught
BHSC 6319 Professional Ethics and Organizational Responsibility
SCCL 6303 Bioethics and Public Policy
John A. Mears
Dr. John Mears received his B.A. from the University of Minnesota and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, then spent three years at New Mexico State University before joining the faculty at SMU in 1967. A specialist in modem European history, he initially focused his attention on seventeenth-century Austria. As his interests broadened in the 1980s, he joined the World History Association, serving as its president from 1994 to 1996. He is currently completing a book that offers an interpretative overview of humanity's past, tentatively entitled To Be Human: A Perspective on Our Common History. Professor Mears has taught in the MLS program from its inception, regularly offering a round of three courses:
Courses Taught
SOSC 6367 Revolution: An Historical Perspective
SOSC 6376 Intellectual and Cultural History of Modern Europe: Renaissance to Enlightenment
SOSC 6377 Intellectual and Cultural History of Modern Europe: Romanticism to the Present
Vicki Meek
Ms. Meek received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Tyler School of Fine Arts in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania and her Master of Fine Arts from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. In addition to her training in fine arts, Ms. Meek did Post Graduate work in Art History at Queens College in New York.
Ms. Meek's work is included in numerous private collections and part of the public collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Norwalk Community College in Norwalk, Connecticut, and the African-American Museum in Dallas. Although she no longer works actively as an artist in the public art arena, she continues to serve on numerous national selection panels for public art projects.
Vicki Meek adds to her career a long history as an independent curator. Having curated over sixty exhibitions, she served as an Adjunct Curator for the African American Museum in Dallas. Ms. Meek also writes cultural criticism for ArtLies: A Texas Art Journal where she also served as board secretary. Ms. Meek is currently the Manager of the South Dallas Cultural Center.
Courses Taught
FNAR 6302 The Black Aesthetic in the Visual Arts
Evelyn L. Parker
Dr. Evelyn L. Parker is Associate Professor of Practical Theology at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University. She joined the faculty in July 1998.
Parker received the Bachelor of Science from Lambuth College, Jackson, Tennessee, in 1974, and the Master of Science from Prairie View A&M University, in 1983. Upon receiving her M.S. she served as a research scientist in the department of Human Biological Chemistry and Genetics at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. She attended the two-week Christian Educators Seminar at Perkins School of Theology from 1986 until 1989 and received a Certificate as an Associate in Christian Education in June 1989. The seminars were the impetus for further study in theological education and the transition from a vocation in biological research to one in educational ministry. During the fall of 1989 she became a full-time student at Perkins receiving the Master of Religious Education in 1991. In December 1996 Evelyn earned her Ph.D. from the Joint Program of Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary/Northwestern University in Religious and Theological Studies, with an interdisciplinary emphasis in Christian Education, Womanist approaches to religion and society, and education and public policy. While at Garrett Seminary/Northwestern University, she was a Fund for Theological Education Black Doctoral Scholar from 1993-1995. Parker is the editor of The Sacred Selves of Adolescent Girls: Hard Stories of Race, Class, and Gender (Pilgrim Press, 2006) and author of Trouble Don't Last Always: Emancipatory Hope Among African American Adolescents (Pilgrim Press, 2003). She is the co-author of In Search of Wisdom: Faith Formation in the Black Church (Abingdon, 2002). She has also published several chapters and journal articles on adolescent spirituality.
Courses Taught
HUMN 7302 Just Between Sisters: Gender, Race, Class, Sexuality, and Relationships of Mixed-Race Women and Girls
Hugh Parmer
Hugh Parmer was appointed by President Clinton to lead the Humanitarian Response Bureau of the U. S. Agency for International Development. In that capacity he managed U. S. government humanitarian and disaster relief efforts in over eighty countries. He was on the ground during fourteen of those crises including famine in East Africa, hurricanes in the Caribbean, and the humanitarian relief efforts surrounding the Kosovo War. After his government service Mr. Parmer served as President of the American Refugee Committee, a private non-profit relief organization with 2000 employees and programs in a dozen disaster stricken countries. Prior to his ten year career in humanitarian relief, he was active in politics and local govenment in Texas serving as Mayor of Fort Worth and for eight years in the Texas State Senate. He is a licensed attorney and mediator in Fort Worth and an adjutant professor in the International Studies Program at the University of North Texas.
Courses Taught
HUMN 6321 International Humanitarian Aid in a Post Cold War World
Annette R. Patterson - M.S., C.G.C.
Annette Pattersonreceived her undergraduate degree in biology from Southern Methodist University, and her Master's degree in Human Genetics from Sarah Lawrence College in New York.
Annette Patterson is a cancer genetic counselor with a background in biochemistry research and a special interest in medical ethics. From 2000 to 2007 she worked in cancer genetics at the UT Southwestern Medical Center, functioning in both clinical and research capacities. She is currently employed as a cancer genetic counselor at Medical City Dallas Hospital. She is also an adjunct professor at both Southern Methodist University and The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences at Little Rock teaching Genetics and Ethics and Cancer Genetics. With regard to research, she has participated in a number of studies addressing various aspects of inherited cancer syndromes and the underlying causes of breast cancer survival disparities among minority women. Her publications include an essay on disability in Genetics: Science, Ethics, and Public Policy, and papers in journals such as the Journal of Clinical Oncology and the American Journal of Human Genetics.
Courses Taught
SCCL 6305 Genetics and Ethics (WI)
Darwin Payne
A professor of communications emeritus at Southern Methodist University, where he taught journalism for thirty years.
He holds a bachelor of journalism degree from the University of Texas at Austin, a master of arts degree in history from Southern Methodist University, and a Ph.D. in American Civilization from the University of Texas at Austin.
He has written several books on Dallas history, the most prominent being Big D: Triumphs and Troubles of an American Supercity in the 20th Century (Three Forks Press, 1994 and revised in 2000. Others include As Old As Dallas Itself: A History of the Lawyers of Dallas, the Dallas Bar Associations, and the City They Helped Build (Three Forks Press, 1999), From Prairie to Planes: How Dallas and Fort Worth Overcame Politics and Personalities to Build One of the World's Biggest and Busiest Airports (Three Forks Press, 1999, with Kathy Fitzpatrick), Dallas: An Illustrated History (Windsor, 1982), Dynamic Dallas: An Illustrated History (Heritage, 2002), and Dallas Citizens Council: An Obligation of Leadership (2008).
His most recent publication is Quest for Justice: L.A. Bedford Jr. and the Struggle for Equal Rights in Texas, published by SMU Press in 2009.
He was one of the researchers who helped prepare information and gather archival materials for the Old Red Museum.
His biography of Sarah T. Hughes, entitled Indomitable Sarah: The Life of Judge Sarah T. Hughes, published by the SMU Press, won the Texas State Historical Association's Liz Carpenter Award for the best book on women's history for 2004, and was a finalist in the Texas Institute of Letters' for the best non-fiction book of the year. His biography of the writer Owen Wister entitled Owen Wister: Chronicler of the West, Gentleman of the East, published in 1985 by the SMU Press, won the Texas Institute of Letters' award for best scholarly book of 1985.
His biography of the historian and editor Frederick Lewis Allen (The Man of Only Yesterday), was published by Harper & Row in 1975. His biography of Dallas' first African American judge, Quest for Justice: Louis A. Bedford Jr. and the Struggle for Equal Rights in Texas, will be published in February 2009 by the SMU Press.
Payne is a former reporter for the Fort Worth Press, Dallas Times Herald, and KERA-TV's "Newsroom."
Courses Taught
SOSC 6311 Seminar in Dallas History
Rena Pederson
Rena Pederson is Director of Communications for the National Math and Science Initiative, a non-profit organization created to advance math and science education in the United States. In that role, she supervises all NMSI publications, media relations, website, video production, and social media.
Prior to joining NMSI, she served as Senior Advisor for Strategic Communications for the Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs in Washington, D.C., serving as a senior speechwriter and communications manager. As part of those duties, Ms. Pederson served on the editorial board of the Counter Terrorism Communications Center at the Department of State, organized an international conference on attacks on the press, prepared Congressional testimony for Under Secretary Karen Hughes, and helped create the "America Is" book for distribution overseas.
She previously served as Vice President and Editorial Page Editor at The Dallas Morning News, supervising the staff and content of the opinion pages for 16 years. Prior to joining The News, she was a reporter with United Press International (1970-72) and the Associated Press (1972). She also worked in the Washington bureau of the Houston Chronicle (1973).
Ms. Pederson graduated with honors from the University of Texas at Austin (bachelor of science in journalism 1969). She also received a master's degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York (master of science in journalism 1970).
Courses Taught
HUMN 7362 The Art of Persuasive Writing
Tony Pederson
Received a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism/communication from Baylor University and a Master of Arts in journalism from Ohio State University.
Dr. Pederson holds the rank of professor and is the Belo Distinguished Chair in Journalism at Southern Methodist University. In that position he chairs the Division of Journalism in the Meadows School of the Arts. Before assuming the Belo chair in June of 2003 he was senior vice president and executive editor of the Houston Chronicle.
His teaching at SMU focuses on media ethics, and he has written extensively on the subject and serves as a local resource for media in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. He lectures and speaks frequently on mass media issues, especially relating to converging media. In the MLS program he teaches HUMN 6380: News Media in Contemporary Society.
He is a longtime activist in First Amendment issues and international press freedom issues, especially in Latin America. He was president of the Inter American Press Association in 1999-2000.
Courses Taught
HUMN 6380 News Media in Contemporary Society
Gerry Perkus
A native of New York, with a B.A. from Brooklyn College, and a PhD in English literature from the University of Rochester , Dr. Gerry Perkus has served as an Adjunct Professor of Humanities in the MLA/MLS program since 1986 and has taught literature, writing, and interdisciplinary courses at colleges and universities in New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Texas. At SMU, he has taught Business Communications in the Cox School of Business and has also held the position of Director of Off-Campus Education for the School of Engineering and Applied Science. In addition to Business and the American Dream in Literature, Dr. Perkus' teaching and research interests include Love in Literature, and Psychological Fiction. He thoroughly enjoys working with mature students in the MLS program, encouraging them to integrate the subject matter of literature with their own life-experience to gain new insights. His hobbies include travel, oil-painting, jazz piano, swimming, and racquetball.
Courses Taught
HUMN 6115 Classic Texts: Gustave Flaubert and Madame Bovary
HUMN 6314 Business and the American Dream in Literature
HUMN 6315 16 Love in Literature I and II
Benjamin A. Petty
Dr. Benjamin A. Petty is a native of New Orleans who graduated with honors in English from Tulane University. Subsequent schooling earned him a Master of Divinity degree from Emory University and a Ph.D. in philosophy from Boston University. He began teaching at SMU in 1953 in the undergraduate Religion Department. Soon he taught also in the Philosophy Department and in time became its Chairman. Dr. Petty was among the first teachers in the MLA (now MLS) program. His course offerings are in the field of the history of philosophy and his specialty is the philosophy of religion.
Courses Taught
HUMN 6115 Classic Texts: Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
HUMN 6314 History of Philosophy - Idealism
HUMN 6363 Philosophers Examine Religion, Part II
Anthony Picchioni
Dr. Anthony Picchioni is Chair of the Department of Human Development at Southern Methodist University. He has used his extensive knowledge and experience in negotiation, organizational behavior, conflict management, change management, succession planning, and dispute resolution to educate corporate executives and business people across the United States and abroad. With more than thirty years experience as a facilitator/ trainer, Dr. Picchioni has assisted in resolving all types of disputes, including those involving employment, commercial contracts, interdepartmental conflicts, and family matters. Dr. Picchioni received his Ph.D. from the University of North Texas in Counseling. He has also done extensive post-graduate studies in Dispute Resolution at The Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, Pepperdine Law School and CDR Associates in Boulder, Colorado. He is published in areas relating to human development, counseling, psychology, philosophy, and history.
Courses Taught
HUMN 6316 The Human Experience: Introduction to Graduate Liberal Studies
Dr. Jody Potts
B.S., Baylor University; M.A., Southern Methodist University; Ph.D., University of North Texas
Dr. Jody Potts' research and teaching focus on the biographical aspects of the American experience. Through the writings of key Americans, her course Ideas Shaping the American Character explores the ideas--political, economic, religious, social, intellectual, and artistic--that shaped the American character from the Puritan Era through the twentieth century. An additional research interest involving left and right brain learning concepts resulted in Dr. Potts' creation of an MLS course titled The Lively Mind: Creative and Critical Thinking.
Dr. Potts has served as University Spokesperson on the Texas Council for Social Studies Textbook Adoption Review Committee and as a member of the TCSS curriculum committee. She is a member the Department of History Advisory Council and the Teaching of History Conference Advisory Board at the University of North Texas and is a past member of the Presidents' Circle of the National Academy of Sciences. During the summer she teaches courses at the Chautauqua Institution in New York. In 2001 she was honored as an outstanding alumna of the University of North Texas.
Dr. Potts is the founder of Lively Mind Seminars, a national consulting firm offering left/right brain learning seminars for education, government, and business organizations. Participants include The University of Texas at Austin Senior Faculty, the New York City Association of Middle School Principals, the New York City United Federation of Teachers, and The Wall Street Journal executives.
Courses Taught
BHSC 6315 The Lively Mind: Creative and Critical Thinking
SOSC 6115 Classic Texts: Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography
SOSC 6115 Classic Texts: James Madison, Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention
SOSC 6332 Ideas Shaping the American Character, Part I, 1607-1877
SOSC 6333 Ideas Shaping the American Character, Part II, 1877-2000
SOSC 7322 Women and the American Experience, Part 1, 1607-1900
SOSC 7323 Women and American Experience, Part II
Morton D. Prager
Dr. Morton Prager served as professor of Surgery and Biochemistry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center where he taught medical students and graduate students seeking the Ph.D. degree in a basic science related to medicine. His teaching included courses in biochemistry, immunology and medical ethics. He conducted a research program which for many years was focused on problems related to cancer. In later years his research involved studies of biomaterials and their application in medical practice. He has lectured widely across the United States and in 11 foreign countries which include Canada, Mexico, France, Italy, Germany, England, Belgium, The Netherlands, Sweden, Israel, and Japan. He published more than 100 scientific manuscripts and made a still larger number of presentations at national and international scientific meetings. Dr. Prager has been a member of 12 learned scientific societies. He was Visiting Professor at Texas Christian University and has taught courses dealing with the impact of science on issues of ethical concern at both Southern Methodist University and the University of North Texas. Dr. Prager was a board member and chairman of the American Chemical Society, Dallas-Ft. Worth section. He has served on numerous boards for Jewish organizations, both locally and nationally. He is a frequent lecturer on scientific and ethical issues.
Courses Taught
SCCL 6310 Science/Ethics Concerns
SCCL 6101 Matters of Life and Death
William Pulte
Dr. William Pulte received his Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Texas at Austin. His major research interest is Native American linguistics, and is the co-author of two volumes in Cherokee linguistics: The Cherokee-English Dictionary, and An Outline of Cherokee Grammar. A third volume, Cherokee Narratives is near completion. Dr. Pulte is familiar with the cultures and languages of a number of Native American tribes in addition to Cherokee, including Chickasaw, Kiowa, and Cheyenne. His other interests include body language and the various functions of language and paralanguage in conversational settings. Dr. Pulte has received 15 grants at SMU, including 14 training grants for teachers of bilingual education and a National Science Foundation grant for Cherokee language research and worked with the Otomi in the state of Hildalgo, Mexico.
Courses Taught
BHSC 6314 Native American Heritage
BHSC 6324 Language, Culture, and Beliefs
BHSC 6325 Speech & Body Language
Reverend Todd W. Rasberry
The Reverend Todd W. Rasberry, Ph.D. serves as the Director of Development and Adjunct Professor of Leadership and Practical Theology for Perkins School of Theology at SMU. Todd received a Ph.D. in Technical Communication and Rhetoric from Texas Tech University, a Master of Divinity degree from Perkins School of Theology, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Humanities from McMurry University. Prior to joining the staff at Perkins in September of 2007, Dr. Rasberry served as the Senior Development Officer for the College of Arts and Sciences at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. Todd is a clergy member of the Northwest Texas Annual Conference where he spent more than twenty years in local church ministry. Todd's research interests include rhetoric and making meaning, social genre theory, intercultural communication, rhetorical practices of fundraising, and theology of stewardship.
Courses Taught
CA 8317 Theology and Practice of Stewardship
DM 9385 Issues in Christian Stewardship
HUMN 7357 Intercultural Communication
Anthony Robinson
Tony Robinson has been involved with energy efficiency and environmental sustainability for more than twenty-five years, including broad experience in product design & development, building energy analysis, manufacturers' representation and construction management. Tony has worked on everything from sustainable landscape construction in Berkeley, CA and food-producing modular geodesic greenhouses with solar-powered hydroponics in the Arizona desert, to technical analysis and product development for building envelopes, and Systems Engineering for decision frameworks in Green Building. His writings on energy and sustainability have appeared in a variety of publications including: The Clean Technology & Sustainable Industries Organization, The IEEE - International Symposium on Sustainable Systems & Technology, The National Career Development Association, Proceedings of the Association of Energy Engineers and The American Solar Energy Society. His book, High Performance Buildings: A Guide For Owners & Managers, is forthcoming from CRC/Fairmont Press. A member of the Clean Technology & Sustainable Industries Organization, the Association of Energy Engineers, and the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture, he is SVP of the Tech Labs Group for the Energy & Resource Technology HUB of North Texas www.earthnt.org and President of Axis Building Consultants, Inc.
Tony is also co-founder, publisher and editor of Transformation: A Journal of Literature, Ideas & the Arts www.tformjournal.com.
Courses Taught
SCCL 6312 Energy & Economy: The Sustainability Factor
SCCL 6395 Environmental Sustainability: Current Issues in Energy, Politics & Economic Development
Sara Romersberger
SMU Associate Professor of Theatre
M.A., University of Illinois
Sara Romersberger, Movement Specialist, holds a B.S. in theatre education from Illinois State University, an M.A. in dance from the University of Illinois, and a Certificate of Mime/Movement from Ecole Jacques Lecoq, Paris, France. Lecoq-based movement classes include placement, acrobatics, neutral and character mask, masks of the Commedia Dell' Arte, European clown, historical movement styles (Renaissance and Restoration) and dance of the 20th century.
Her professional work in the Dallas area since 2000 includes directing Tripping the Light Fantastic for the Festival of Independent Theaters and creating or coaching movement, dance and/or fight choreography for Macbeth, The Tempest, A Midsummer Night's Dream- the musical, As You Like It, A Comedy of Errors, The Compleat Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) at the Shakespeare Festival of Dallas; for Anna in the Tropics, Hamlet, Wit and Crumbs From the Table of Joy at The Dallas Theater Center; for Greendale, Waiting for the Train, Blasted, The Late Henry Moss, A Man's Best Friend, and Silence at the Undermain Theatre; for Misery at Circle Theatre in Fort Worth; and for The Last Five Years at the Plano Repertory Theatre as well as additional shows at Theatre Three, Classical Acting Company and Contemporary Theatre of Dallas. She was a winner of a Dallas Theatre Critics award and a 2005 Rabin award for Special Recognition for Outstanding Choreography for her work on The Wrestling Season at Dallas Children's Theatre.
Courses Taught
FNAR 6316 On Being Funny
Elizabeth Russ
Dr. Elizabeth Russ grew up in Dallas. Although she left the Big D to attend Pomona College in sunny Southern California, she came back after graduating to teach bilingual kindergarten in the DISD. Two years later, she left again to pursue her doctorate in Spanish language and Latin American literature at Columbia University. After six years in New York, plus a year in the Dominican Republic as a Fulbright student scholar, she made yet another return to Dallas, this time to join the faculty of Dedman College's Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, where she currently holds the position of Associate Professor of Spanish. She is author of numerous scholarly articles plus a book, The Plantation in the Postslavery Imagination, which examines how twentieth-century writers from across the Americas use the language of fiction to reexamine the legacy of slavery and the plantation. She is currently working on a second book, about the nature of space and place in recent literature from the Dominican Republic. In addition to teaching courses on Latin American literature and culture to undergraduates at SMU, she has given presentations and facilitated conversations about film and literature in such venues as the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture and the Dallas Latino Cultural Center.
Courses Taught
HUMN 7302 Transnational Traditions: the Literature of the Americas
Martha Satz
Dr. Martha Satz exploits her dual background in philosophy and literature and experience in trans-racial culture to teach and write about a diversity of topics. She teaches courses in minority literature, most notably African American and Jewish American literature, ethics and children's literature, literature and disability, and ethics and literature. She is on leave fall 2006 to complete a work on literature, culture, and trans-racial adoption.
Courses Taught
HUMN 6115 Classic Texts: MiddleMarch
HUMN 6115 Classic Texts: Mrs. Dolloway & The Hours
HUMN 6308 Women's Lives and Literature
Jan Sayers
Speech Coach and Lecturer, SMU
Dr. Jan Sayers has taught communication courses at SMU since 1990. Her particular areas of interest are public speaking, persuasion, voice and articulation, and oral interpretation of the literature, either through the undergraduate education program or the graduate Master of Liberal Studies (MLS) program in the School of Education and Human Development. She directed the SMU forensics program for three years including an award-winning team in 1993 and 1995.
Dr. Sayers's career has always included experience in the corporate world as well as academia. She served as an Educational Technologist while at the GTE World Headquarters (Telephone Operations) in Irving, Texas. She assessed training needs and designed curricula for various courses. While at GTE, the issue of workplace literacy became one of her primary areas of concentration. She interviewed area schools providing workplace literacy and the businesses they served. A summary of her dissertation on how colleges provide workplace literacy programs to business and industry was published two years later.*
Dr. Sayers' degrees include the B.F.A., Communication in Human Relations, Texas Christian University; M.S., Communication in Human Relations, T.C.U.; and Ph.D., Higher Education, University of North Texas.
* Sayers, J.K. (l995, July-August). “Providing Workplace Literacy: Collaboration with Business and Industry.“ Community College Journal of Research and Practice, 19, pp. 295-305.
Courses Taught
BHSC 6110 Articulate Voice
BHSC 6302 The Art of Public Speaking
BHSC 6326 Communication and Persuasion
HUMN 6356 Oral Interpretation of Literature
Dennis Simon
Dr. Dennis Simon is an Altshuler Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Department of Political Science at Southern Methodist University. He is the recipient of SMU's "M" Award, the Willis Tate Award, and President's Associate award. His research and teaching interests include the American Presidency, national elections, and the politics of change in the United States. He is the recipient of the Southern Political Science Association's Pi Sigma Alpha Award for his study of national forces in state legislative elections and, with Barbara Palmer, has twice received the Miriam Irish Award for their work on women in the electoral arena. Since the spring of 2008, he has taught a course on the Politics and Legacies of the Civil Rights Movement and served as the faculty leader of SMU's Civil Rights Pilgrimage. His most recent book, with co-author Barbara Palmer, Women and Congressional Elections: A Century of Change was published by Lynne Reiner in May of 2012. He is currently working on a manuscript entitled The Great Contradiction: Race and Congressional Elections in the American South.
Courses Taught
SOSC 6329 The American Presidency
SOSC 6330 Politics and Film
SOSC 6331 Elections and Politics
SOSC 6356 Civil Rights: An Unfinished Revolution
Carmen Smith
Dr. Carmen Smith is Director of Education at the Meadows Museum where she designs and oversees programs for a large, diverse audience on and off campus. She received her undergraduate degree in Business and Spanish from Marquette University, her Masters degree in Museum Science from Texas Tech University, and her doctorate in Art Education from the University of North Texas. Dr. Smith has over 25 years of experience as an art museum professional, including three years as Family and Special Programs Coordinator at the Kimbell Art Museum and twelve years working in several capacities at the Dallas Museum of Art. She has broad teaching experience with different age groups in both the museum and classroom settings. As Adjunct Professor at the University of North Texas, she taught classes in art education and aesthetics. Before joining SMU in 2007, when working in the museums she missed the college students, and when working in the university she missed the objects. Her position at the Meadows Museum offers her the best of both worlds.
Courses Taught
FNAR 6387 Inspiring Creativity through Original Art
Joyce Stubblefield
Ms. Stubblefield started her career in the environmental field in 1977. Her work experience includes three years with the Department of Energy at the Superconducting Super Collider Laboratory mitigating environmental impacts for the project.
Ms. Stubblefield received her B.S. degree in Mathematics from Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and a MBA in Management at Amber University in Garland, Texas. She is an Environmental Associate Auditor for the International Organization for Standardization ISO 14001. She earned two Sustainability Certificates from Southern Methodist University (SMU) School of Engineering and last year received LEED Green Associate Credentials in August 2010. Ms. Stubblefield received her Masters ( MA) in Sustainability and Development from the Bobby B. Lyle School of Engineering, August 2012.
Courses Taught
SCCL 6397 Earth Matters: Introduction to Global Environmental Quality
Gary D. Swaim
Adjunct Professor for the Master's in Liberal Studies Program
Dr. Gary D. Swaim received his A.B. in English from the University of California at Riverside and his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and Philosophy from the University of Redlands and Claremont Graduate University (both of California). He has taught broadly in a variety of interdisciplinary courses as well as in English and creative writing (graduate and undergraduate). He serves as Faculty Advisor for the Creative Writing Concentration in the MLS Program and is Executive Editor of Pony Express(ions), an emerging online journal reflecting the academic work, including creative writing, of the MLS Program.
He is a produced playwright, writer of fiction, and digital painter. In 1999 he was selected as a Minnie Stevens Piper Professor of Excellence for the State of Texas. He has, additionally, been honored as the 2011 Texas Senior Poet Laureate.
See his webpage at garyswaim.com
Courses Taught
FNAR 6304 Writing the West
FNAR 6308 Creating Truths
FNAR 6315 Creating the Memoir
FNAR 6394 Creating Poetry
HUMN 6316 The Human Experience
HUMN 7313 Creating the Short Story
HUMN 7336 Creativity: Historical and Personal
Rob Tranchin
Rob Tranchin is a writer, director and producer of documentary films and radio features. He is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College (Visual and Environmental Studies) and of New York University (Cinema Studies), and has lived and traveled extensively in Japan, where he worked as an assistant director to the Japanese film director Imamura Shohei. Tranchin is the recipient of a national Emmy Award for the four-part series The U.S.-Mexican War (1846-1848) and received a national Emmy Award nomination for Matisse & Picasso. Among his other national productions for PBS are For a Deaf Son, Roy Bedichek's Vanishing Frontier and Sweet Tornado: Margo Jones and the American Theater.
Courses Taught
FNAR 6305 From Sunrise to Psycho: Form and Meaning in the Cinema
Nicolay (Nick) Tsarevsky
Nicolay (Nick) Tsarevsky obtained his M.S. in theoretical chemistry and chemical physics in 1999 from the University of Sofia, Bulgaria. He joined Professor Kris Matyjaszewski's research group at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA, as a Ph.D. student in 2000, and obtained his doctorate in 2005. He worked on the synthesis of functional polymers by atom transfer radical polymerization, and on development of rules for rational selection of the catalyst for various reaction media, including aqueous solvents. He was awarded the Kenneth G. Hancock Memorial Award in Green Chemistry (2003), the Excellence in Graduate Polymer Research Award (2004), the Pittsburgh Section of the American Chemical Society (ACS) Polymer Group Student Award (2004), as well as the Harrison Legacy Dissertation Fellowship (2004-5), and the National Starch & Chemical Award (2008). He has authored and coauthored 53 papers in peer-reviewed journals, 8 book chapters, a textbook for high school students, and several patents. He was Visiting Assistant Professor at the Department of Chemistry at Carnegie Mellon University (2005-6), Associate Director of the CRP Consortium (2006), and a member of the founding team of ATRP Solutions, Inc., of which he served as Chief Science Officer (2007-10). He was secretary (2005) and chair (2006) of the Polymer Group of the Pittsburgh Section of ACS, as well as chair of the Section (2009). He joined the Department of Chemistry at Southern Methodist University in the Summer of 2010. His current work focuses on the synthesis and applications of polymers with controlled molecular architecture and functionality. http://smu.edu/chemistry/tsarevsky.asp
Courses Taught
FNAR 6307 Chemistry and Technology in Art: From Antiquity to the Industrial Revolution
John Ubelaker
Dr. John Ubelaker is a professor of Biological Sciences at SMU. His research specializes on parasitic organisms that cause human diseases. He has over 100 publications in professional publications on parasites and has conducted research projects in Central and South America, and in Yugoslavia as well as throughout the US. His course on Parasitology is a popular course in the biological sciences and he has taught a related course in the MLS program entitled Little but Lethal. Dr. Ubelaker is an engaging lecturer, and was awarded the Altschuler Outstanding lecturer in recognition of his skills. He has also served as chair of the department of Biological Sciences and Associate Director of the SMU in Taos program. John has build a home in the Taos New Mexico area and will retire there in 3 years.
Courses Taught
SCCL 6335 Little but Lethal
SCCL 6389 The Origins and Evolution of Life
SCCL 7205 Wildflowers of the Southern Rockies
John M. Vernon
JD, St. Mary's University; B.A., The University of Texas at Austin
Mr. Vernon is a practicing attorney, licensed in Texas, Utah, and the District of Columbia, with The Vernon Law Group, PLLC, who advises and counsels clients on cross-border international and domestic transactions, international trade, and international franchising. He has taught seminars and spoken as a guest lecturer at law schools both in the US and in many other countries. Mr. Vernon is also adjunct faculty to the SMU Dedman School of Law.
Mr. Vernon has taken an active role in dealing with human rights issues both in the US and abroad. He is involved with Texas Appleseed, where he participates in the pro bono representation of juveniles in the state of Texas who were denied representation of counsel in crucial detention hearings. In addition, he is a member of the International Bar Association Human Rights Institute, a leading voice in international human rights and the promotion of the rule of law, where he works closely with other international counsel and foreign bar associations reviewing and making comment to Human Rights Institute investigations being conducted in countries with known, on-going human rights violations. Further, he has participated in Human Rights Institute programs analyzing the process of pre-trial detention, access to legal representation and the criminal justice system in several Sub-Saharan African countries. He has also participated in a variety of human rights and international trade projects related to work in Sub-Saharan Africa, most prominently, Malawi. Also, Mr. Vernon is involved with establishing a law school in Livingstonia, Malawi, to educate law students, clergy and attorneys in International Human Rights Law.
Courses Taught
HUMN 6326 Indigenous Peoples' Rights in a Global Economy
SOSC 6301 Terrorism and Torture
SOSC 7324 The Impact of the Arab Spring on Israel and the Middle East
Gregory Warden
Dr. Gregory Warden is the University Distinguished Professor of Art History and Associate Dean for Research and Academic Affairs at SMU, received a BA in Anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania and MA and PhD degrees in Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology from Bryn Mawr College. Warden was named Meadows Foundation Distinguished Teaching Professor in 1995 and taught at Bowdoin College and the University of Pennsylvania before coming to SMU in 1982.
He has authored or co-authored four books as well as over fifty articles and reviews in journals such as the American Journal of Archaeology, Art History, Etruscan Studies, RÃmische Mitteilungen, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, and the International Foundation for Art Research Journal. His research interests have included Greek archaeology (the Demeter sanctuary at Cyrene), Etruscan art and ritual, and Roman architecture (the Villa of the Papyri and the Domus Aurea). Warden served as interim Director of the Meadows Museum where he organized the exhibit, Greek Vase Painting: Form, Figure, and Narrative. Treasures of the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid (2003). He also contributed to the catalogue of Escultura en Plata (2004) James Surls. In the Meadows and Beyond. (Dallas 2004). In 2009 he coordinated and wrote the catalogue for From the Temple and the Tomb. Etruscan Treasures from Tuscany, the largest and most comprehensive exhibit on the Etruscans in North America.
A native of Italy, Warden is the founder, Principal Investigator, and co-Director of the Mugello Valley Archaeological Project and excavations at Poggio Colla, an Etruscan settlement north-east of Florence, a joint mission of SMU, Franklin and Marshall College, and the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology. Since 1995 this international project has trained students from over 60 universities and includes scholars from seven countries. The research project has been featured in the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, in the European media, as well as on the Discovery Channel. Warden is also the former Editor of Etruscan Studies, a journal of Etruscan and Italic art and culture, and has been elected to the Istituto di Studi Etruschi e Italici.
Courses Taught
FNAR 6311 Etruscan Art/Archaeology
FNAR 6320 Egypt of the Pharaohs
HUMN 6359 Etruscan Archaeology in Italy
Andrew Weaver
Andrew Weaver has served as an adjunct professor in the Bobby B. Lyle School of Engineering and taught a course of the same name (ME 7303 - Organizational Leadership) as part of the Master of Science in Manufacturing Systems Management (MSM) program. Presently, he is the Vice President of Strategy & Policy for a $8 billion retailer. A student and practitioner of leadership for the last two decades, he has led organizations from 5 to 5,000. His degrees include: M.A National Security & Strategic Studies, U.S. Naval War College 1998; M.P.A. Public Administration, Troy State University 1994; and B.S. in Business from the University of California, Berkeley 1980.
Courses Taught
BHSC 6320 Organizational Leadership
Steve Woods
(Lighting Designer)
Steve Woods has enjoyed international success at the Festival L'Imaginaire and the Festival Blues Sur Scene in Paris as well as productions in Berlin, Moscow, London Athens, Taipei, Budapest, the XIX Winter Olympics, and dozens of other locations around the world. His work in New York City includes the Lincoln Center, Theatre for a New Audience, Ohio Theatre, the Ice Factory, as well as the Joyce and York Theatres. Regional work has been seen at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Undermain Theatre, Dallas Theatre Center, The Shakespeare Theatre (DC), Cumberland County Playhouse as well as Jacob's Pillow, American Dance Festival and Spoleto Festival. Dance credits includes the Jose Limon Dance Company (a member since 1988), Compania Nacional de Danza and work with Phyllis Lamhut, Garth Fagan, John Cranko (Stuttgart Ballet), Donald McKayle, and Daniel Nagrin. Television credits include PBS Broadcasts of Rigoletto, Lucia de Lammermoor, Susannah, Evangeline, and Lewis and Clark, as wells as events for MTV, BBC, Showtime and CBS. Currently Woods serves Professor of Theatre and as Head of the Stage Design Program at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.
Web site: http://www.wix.com/st0168/stevewoods
Courses Taught
FNAR 6396 Spectacle of Theater