This article is from the EMU News Archive. Current EMU new is available at www.emu.edu/news

Faculty Welcomes 13 New Professors

EMU will have 13 new full-time undergraduate and graduate teaching faculty when the fall semester begins Sept. 1, 2004.

The new faculty, announced by Dr. Beryl H. Brubaker, EMU provost, and Dr. Marie S. Morris, vice president and undergraduate academic dean, are:

- David R. Brubaker, assistant professor of conflict studies in the Conflict Transformation Program (CTP). Brubaker earned a BS in business administration from Messiah College, Grantham, Pa., an MBA in global economic development from Eastern University, St. Davids, Pa., and is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Arizona specializing in religious and organizational conflict.

In 1997, he and four partners founded Cooperative by Design, an Arizona Peacebuilding Consortium which provides a range of consulting and peacebuilding services to not-for-profit organizations, educational institutions, governmental organizations and corporations. Before this, he was the associate director of Mennonite Conciliation Service for two years and assistant director of Mennonite Central Committee’s Recife, Brazil, program where he became fluent in Portuguese.

"Since hearing the call to become a university teacher (in 1997), I have attempted to integrate my passion for justice and peace rooted in Christ’s teachings into my academic work," Brubaker said.

- Leah Shao Boyer, assistant professor of physics. Dr. Boyer earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Dalian Marine College (China) and MS and PhD degrees in physics from Bowling Green State University. Her experience includes general physics and material science as well as professional work as an engineer in the United States and in China. She was active in a Chinese Bible study as an outreach to Chinese students at Bowling Green State.

Boyer comes to EMU with "a desire to speak openly about God’s love" as she integrates faith and physics with a commitment to Christian higher education.

- Thomas A. Dodson, associate professor of counseling in the MA in counseling program. Dr. Dodson earned a BS in psychology/organizational behavior from James Madison University, an MEd in guidance and counseling (K-12) from the University of Virginia and a PhD in counseling and counselor education from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. His most recent teaching experience was at Loyola University, Chicago, and he has counseling supervision and professional counseling in public schools and in the community. He is a certified school counselor. Dodson desires to be known as a "student-focused professor with high standards for excellence in teaching."

- Luke Hartman, instructor in teacher education. Hartman earned a BS in liberal arts with a minor in psychology and teaching endorsement in special education from Eastern Mennonite University and a MEd in special education from Wichita State University. He taught eight years at the college level and five years in middle and high school special education. In addition, Hartman has 13 years experience as a boy’s/men’s basketball coach. At Hesston (Kan.) College, he served as an educator, associate director of admissions and faculty chair. Hartman expressed a "passion for mentoring young people."

- Andrew Harvey, associate professor of English. Dr. Harvey holds a BA in English from James Madison University and a masters and PhD in English literature (specializing in renaissance and medieval English) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His teaching experience includes Duke, UNC and most recently UVA’s College at Wise, Va. Harvey's areas of specialization include Renaissance literature, medieval literature, poetry, Bible as literature and film (especially Shakespeare in film and genre studies). "Teaching is my vocation," he stated, "what I see as the reason God put me here."

- Tracy Hough, instructor in teacher education. Hough earned a BA in liberal studies from University of California with teacher credentialing PreK-8 and an MA in education from EMU. Most recently, she was a Title I reading specialist with the Harrisonburg City School System. She also has more than 11 years of elementary teaching experience. Hough has professional membership in the Shenandoah Valley Reading Council and the International Reading Association. She will join EMU's education department as a literacy specialist. "I'm impressed with the scope of the EMU philosophy and the desire to fill the academic and spiritual needs of students," she stated.

- Marike Janzen, assistant professor of German. Janzen earned a BA in German and English from Bethel College (KS), and an MA from The University of Texas at Austin, where she is a Ph.D. candidate in comparative literature. Her dissertation is entitled, "Reading East and West by North and South: Mapping a Critical Author Function in the Cold War." Janzen has taught German and Spanish at Bridgewater College and The University of Texas at Austin. She has been awarded numerous fellowships and was a Fulbright Teaching Assistant in Kühlungsborn, Germany. Janzen wishes to foster an attitude of "Christ’s message of accountable creativity and risk-taking" in the classroom.

- Sue Klassen, assistant professor of nursing. Klassen earned a BA in social work from Fresno Pacific College, a BS in nursing from the University of Virginia, and a MS in community health nursing with post-masters certification as a family nurse practitioner from the University of Virginia. She has three years of teaching and practice experience in Nicaragua, four years of practice in Mozambique and eight years experience in Washington, DC. She is a member of Sigma Theta Tau International and has written "Intensive Care: More Poetry & Prose by Nurses."

Klassen brings significant cross-cultural experience and a commitment to "help young people deepen their faith, broaden their world view, discover their own life vocation and develop their potential for transforming themselves and others in order to bring greater peace and justice to our world."

- Lori Hostetler Leaman, instructor in teacher education. Leaman earned a BS in special education with a minor in psychology from EMU and an MA in education – secondary school administration from James Madison University. She has 14 years of teaching and school administration experience, including 11 years in Nairobi, Kenya at Rosslyn Academy, an international Christian school with at least 32 ethnicities and a diversity of world religions.

Leaman is a member of the National Association of Secondary School Principals and the Council for Learning Disabilities and has accreditation experience with the Middle States Association. She looks forward to "assisting students in discovering and strengthening their gifts and faith for serving Christ in an increasingly interconnected world."

- Chantal Logan, associate professor of French. Dr. Logan earned a BA and an MA degree with focus in French linguistics from the University of Paris-Nanterre and a PhD in comparative literature from the University of Limoges, France. Other fields of study include psychotherapy, Islamic studies and conflict resolution. Logan comes to EMU with many years experience teaching French and Spanish. She and her husband most recently served three years as co-directors for the Somali program in Kenya, Somalia with Eastern Mennonite Missions and Mennonite Central Committee. Logan values "academic excellence combined with intellectual honesty."

- Patrick Reynolds, interim assistant professor of theater. Reynolds holds a BA in theater arts from Linfield College and Caesar," an AM in history of theater from Brown University and an MA from Cornell University, where he is currently a Ph.D. candidate in theater history. His doctoral dissertation is "Brickbats and Jollification: American Vaudeville as Analytic Culture."

Reynolds comes with teaching experience at Cornell University and Linfield College. He was a finalist in the Lilly Fellows Program, won First Place in the 2003 Heermans-McCalmon Playwriting Competition, and both a Sage and Telluride Fellow at Cornell.

He comes with acting experience in New York, Washington, Oregon, and London. Reynolds has directed numerous shows at the college level and in regional theater. He won the ACTF/Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts “Best Supporting Actor, award for his role in The Jeremiah. Reynolds looks forward to a "vigorous pursuit of faith and scholarship" in a place "whose valuation of teaching and mentorship places students at the fore of its concerns."

- Daniel W. Wessner, associate professor of international and political studies. Dr. Wessner earned a BA in history with honors in humanities from Stanford University, a JD degree from the University of Virginia School of Law, an MDiv from Princeton (NJ) Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. in international studies from the University of Denver.

Wessner most recently taught at Bluffton (OH) College and was a distinguished scholar in residence and adjunct professor of law at Pettit College of Law at Ohio Northern University. In addition to significant teaching and professional experience, honors and awards, his seven years in Vietnam and China will bring relevant cross-cultural experience in Asia. Dan has been involved in innovative opportunities with educational partners in Vietnam. He is an ordained minister in Mennonite Church USA and is a member of the State Bar of California.

"It is my vocational 'deep gladness' to connect these core values [Mennonite faith with strong convictions of pacifist non-violent paths of spirituality and polities] with scholarship and teaching," he said.

- Michelle Wood, instructor in nursing. Wood earned a BS in nursing from Virginia Commonwealth University and am MS in psychiatric mental health nursing from the University of Virginia. She also completed post-masters certification as a psychiatric nurse practitioner. Wood has 13 years of professional experience, working most recently as a nurse supervisor at Valley Community Services Board in the PACT Program. She anticipates "blending my faith commitments with professional competence in teaching psychiatric mental health nursing."

— article by: Jim Bishop; posted July 26, 2004