Faculty and Staff
Stephen L. Esquith
Dean
C210G Snyder
(517) 355-0212
esquith@msu.edu
www.msu.edu/~esquith
Stephen L. Esquith (AB Harvard, '70, PhD Princeton, '79) has been working on ethical problems in developing countries since 1990 when he was a senior Fulbright scholar in Poland. His primary scholarly work is Intimacy and Spectacle (Cornell, 1994), a critique of classical and modern liberal political philosophy.
Steve has also been involved in numerous civic engagement projects in the public schools, including an exchange program between local elementary school children in the U.S. and schoolchildren in a community school in Kati, Mali. He has led a study abroad program focusing on ethical issues in development in Mali in summer 2004 and 2006, and he spent the academic year 2005-06 teaching and working with colleagues at the University of Bamako as a senior Fulbright scholar.
Steve is currently finishing a book on mass violence and democratic political education entitled The Political Responsibilities of Everyday Bystanders, and he is co-editing a volume of critical essays on the capabilities approach to development. After serving as chair of the Department of Philosophy 2000-2005, he returned to Michigan State University in fall 2006 to be the dean of the new Residential College in the Arts and Humanities.
Eric Aronoff
Assistant Professor
C220B Snyder
(517) 884-1320
aronoffe@msu.edu
Eric Aronoff received his BA in Comparative Literature from Princeton University, where he concentrated in German and Hebrew literature. After graduating, Aronoff became a charter member of Teach For America and spent three years teaching middle school in the South Bronx and Baltimore. He returned to graduate school to earn his PhD in English at Rutgers University.
Eric's research interests include 19th- and early 20th-century American literature, anthropology, and theories of culture, race and nation, literature and the environment, and science fiction. His current book project, Mapping the "Inland Empire": American Literature, Criticism, and the Problem of Culture, 1903-1941, traces the debates over the idea of "culture" circulating between artists, literary critics, and anthropologists in the early 20th century. His work on Willa Cather has appeared in Willa Cather Society Newsletter and Review.
Shawn Batt
Assistant Professor
C220A
Snyder
(517) 884-1321
sbatt@msu.edu
www.msu.edu/~sbatt
Shawn Batt has taught at the University of Southern California, the University of the Pacific, and the College of Wooster. He has a BA in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics from Pomona College ('92) and a PhD in Communication Arts & Sciences from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California ('99). Shawn's main academic interests are in argumentation, ethics, and rhetoric, but he also has a related interest in design (of activities, systems, simulations).
Shawn enjoys outdoor sports like bicycling and enjoys playing in MSU's underwater hockey club.
Carol A. Cole
Executive Staff Assistant
C210F Snyder
(517) 355-0211
colec@msu.edu
As executive staff assistant, Carol Cole provides administrative support to Dean Stephen Esquith and oversees the day-to-day functioning of the dean's office. She also is responsible for budget/financial records and personnel records, and in general keeps the RCAH trains running.
Carol is a two-time MSU alum, with degrees in Social Work and English. Over the past 18 years she has worked in a number of MSU units, most recently as an editor at the MSU Press. An inveterate cat lover, Carol also enjoys gardening, stitchery, medieval and early modern literature, and music.
David D. Cooper
Professor
286 Bessey Hall
(517) 432-2584
OR
C230B Snyder
(517) 884-1933
cooperd@msu.edu
David D. Cooper (PhD American Studies, '77, Brown University) is a professor of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures at MSU. Director of the College of Arts and Letters' Public Humanities Collaborative, he is also Senior Editor of the literary journal Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction.
David's teaching interests in RCAH include public culture studies, deliberative rhetoric, and social documentary photography as a vehicle for social change.
The author of several books, David has also published over 100 essays, articles, and commentaries. Among his awards are the national Thomas Ehrlich Faculty Award for Service-Learning (Campus Compact and the American Association of Higher Education) and a Lifetime Achievement Citation from Michigan Campus Compact.
David is also an active photographer. Students in his Spring 2007 ROIAL workshop ("Shutter to Think: The Photo Essay") will exhibit their photo essays in the RCAH gallery space in Spring 2008. An avid bike rider, David spends his summers biking along California's rugged central coast, where he shares a home with his wife Christina and their dogs, Biggs and Kula.
Deidre Dawson
Professor
C220C Snyder
(517) 884-1931
boudicca@msu.edu
Deidre Dawson comes to the RCAH with a background in French literature, language, and culture. She completed her undergraduate work and a Masters at the Université Paul Valery in Montpellier, France, and holds a PhD from Yale University, where she concentrated on the French Enlightenment. Deidre's research and teaching interests include the relationship between literature, the visual arts, and culture in early modern France; intellectual exchanges between the philosophers of the French and Scottish Englightenments; Senegalese literature and culture; the history and culture of Languedoc (including the Occitan language); medievalism (in particular the work of J.R.R. Tolkien and modern interpretations of the Arthurian legend); Celtic Studies; and literature dealing with adoption, identity, and culture.
Deidre collaborated with Dean Esquith on the French-Mali project, and she is a faculty advisor for the study abroad program "French and African Studies in west Africa (Senegal)."
Deidre enjoys bird watching, beachcombing, and listening and dancing to all kinds of music.
Vincent P. Delgado
Academic Specialist
C210E Snyder
(517) 884-1940
delgado1@msu.edu
A partner with the Global Workshop, LLC, and founding director of Lansing’s Refugee Development Center, Vincent Delgado has a decade of experience speaking and writing about international and refugee issues. For ten years he worked as a print journalist, covering conflict in Central America, labor in Mexico, and politics and local government in the United States. His work has appeared in major newspapers, travel magazines, and several Washington, D.C.-based political newsletters.
The Colorado native is fluent in Spanish and has worked as an English as a Foreign Language instructor and an adjunct professor in political science. Vince regularly works with college students on international topics, maintains significant contacts with experts in the migration and humanitarian aid community, and is a frequent speaker on international topics.
Vince is the author of the documentary cookbook A Taste of Freedom: A Culinary Journey with America’s Refugees (2003), published by Global Workshop. He was named International Humanitarian of the Year for the American Red Cross Great Lakes Region in both 2005 and 2006.
Laura Delind
Visiting Assistant Professor
302 Baker Hall
(517) 355-7490
OR
C230B Snyder
(517) 884-1933
delind@msu.edu
Laura B. Delind earned her PhD in Anthropology from Michigan State University. She has studied, taught, and written about the contemporary agrifood system, critiquing its sociocultural, economic, and environmental costs, especially as they are felt at the local level.
Laura is an advocate of more place-based and democratized systems of food production, distribution, and consumption and combines her academic interests with local activism. She was a founding board member of the Michigan Organic Food and Farm Alliance, and in 1996 she established Growing in Place Community Farm, a working member CSA in Mason, MI. Currently, she is working closely with the Allen Neighborhood Center in Lansing to address the food needs of Eastside residents through a neighborhood farmers market, urban gardens, and direct farmer-merchant-resident coalitions.
Laura also is a member of MSU's University Committee for a Sustainable Campus and the newly created University Food Systems Committee, which is dedicated to better understanding the campus food system and how our eating habits and food procurement decisions impact the world around us (e.g., urban sprawl, biodiversity, waste management, global warming, food equity).
From 2004-2006, Laura was the editor of the international multidisciplinary journal Agriculture and Human Values.
Carolyn Loeb
Associate Professor
C220F Snyder
(517) 884-1322
loeb@msu.edu
Carolyn Loeb (BA University of California, Berkeley; MA San Francisco State University; PhD Graduate Center, City University of New York) is an art and architectural historian who is interested in art's complex and multi-voiced (and sometimes zany) dialogue with social realities.
Carolyn joins the RCAH after teaching for many years in the Art Department at Central Michigan University, where her courses focused on modern and contemporary art, women and art, and modern architecture. In Spring 1994, she taught in the Midwest Consortium for Study Abroad's Vienna Program, where the city itself was the classroom.
Carolyn's research focuses on themes in architectural history. Her interest in housing is reflected in Entrepreneurial Vernacular: Developers' Subdivisions in the 1920s (Johns Hopkins Press, 2001) as well as in work on the municipal housing of Red Vienna. Recently, she has been studying aspects of redevelopment in reunified Berlin. She has written on housing in East Berlin, planning decisions in the zone where the Wall formerly stood, redevelopment's theoretical and historical underpinnings, and the relationship of contemporary public sculpture in Berlin to urban history, public space, memory, and redevelopment.
Kathryn E. McGormley
Academic Advisor/Admissions Representative
C210D Snyder
(517) 884-1243
orwinkat@msu.edu
Kate McGormley has a BA in English from the College of Wooster and an MA in Student Affairs from MSU. She is responsible for recruiting, admissions, and advising in the RCAH. Previously, Kate worked as a graduate assistant in Admissions and as an advisor and special projects coordinator in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences at MSU. Kate also has a background in public relations and event planning.
In her spare time Kate enjoys reading, writing, music, sports, and spending time with her husband and friends. She is also a dog lover and enjoys Indy, her chocolate lab, and Gus, her jack russell terrier. Kate is looking forward to working with all the exceptional RCAH students.
Dylan Miner
Assistant Professor
C230J Snyder
(517) 884-1323
dminer@msu.edu
http://www.dylanminer.com
Dylan Miner is an artist, critic, and historian interested in the complexities of culture in contemporary society. He holds degrees in Fine Arts, Spanish, Latin American Studies, and Art History. Originally from Michigan's Thumb, Dylan joins the RCAH after nearly a decade of living, learning, and working in the "Heart of Aztlán." Dylan is of Red River Métis descent and active in the Campesino Collective, Just Seeds Collective, and the Aboriginal Curatorial Collective. In addition to his role in the RCAH, Dylan is Core Faculty in Chicano Latino Studies and Affiliated Faculty in American Indian Studies.
Dylan's academic interests are broad, but focus on the cultural practices of anti-capitalist struggle. He is particularly interested in critical theory and Indigenous, Chicana/o, and Latin American cultural expressions. Dylan has published articles in Latina/o and Indigenous community newspapers, in addition to academic journals and encyclopedias.
Recently, Dylan's artwork was exhibited at the Institute for American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, La Galería de la Raza in San Francisco, and the Cherokee Heritage Center in Oklahoma. He is currently working on a book analyzing the role of Aztlán in Chicana/o art and visual culture.
Terese Monberg
Assistant Professor
C230D Snyder
(517) 884-1324
tmonberg@msu.edu
Terese Guinsatao Monberg holds a BS in Economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an MS and PhD in Rhetoric and Communication from Renssealaer Polytechnic Institute. She has taught at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the University of Louisville, and the University of Kansas.
Terese's research examines interrelationships between rhetoric and culture, history and social movements, collective identities and civic participation—with a specific focus in Asian American and Filipino American rhetoric and writing.
Terese is currently working on a book-length manuscript that traces the emergence of the Filipino American National Historical Society (FANHS), a community-based historical society, in relationship to larger economic, social, and global changes impacting Filipino American communities after World War II and intensifying after 1965. She is very excited to be joining the faculty in the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities and looks forward to meeting the inaugural class next fall.
Pam Newsted
Academic Secretary
C210 Snyder
(517) 355-0210
newstedp@msu.edu
As academic secretary, Pam Newsted serves as primary receptionist to students, faculty, staff and visitors to the RCAH. Her responsibilities include working with student records, assisting faculty, and generally serving as the “first line of opportunity” with any questions you may have.
Pam has worked at MSU collectively for over 13 years, most recently in the College of Arts and Letters Development and Alumni Relations office. She has also worked in the College of Natural Science dean's office and Lyman Briggs College. Pam's husband and daughter are MSU graduates and her son is looking forward to attending next year. Pam enjoys gardening, walking, and taking continuing education courses for lifelong learning.
Daniel J. Reed
Visiting Assistant Professor
A714 Wells Hall
(517) 884-1503
OR
C220G Snyder
(517) 884-1934
reeddan@msu.edu
Daniel J. Reed (MA Applied Linguistics/TESOL, '83, PhD Linguistics, '91, Indiana University) is a language assessment specialist at MSU's Center for Language Education and Research (CLEAR) and testing coordinator in the MSU English Language Center. Dan develops foreign language proficiency tests and conducts research on language aptitude and the learning of less commonly taught languages, and he is also responsible for the English language testing of incoming international students and international teaching assistant candidates.
Dan has served as president and vice-president of the Indiana State Affiliate of Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (INTESOL). His areas of research and test development include oral proficiency assessment, special purpose testing (e.g., for federal courtroom interpreters and workers in business settings), test accommodations (e.g., linguistic simplification, translation), and reduced-redundancy testing (e.g., listening tasks amidst background conversations).
Dan balances his academic endeavors with music (classical guitar and composition) and physical activities (swimming and basketball), and he encourages students to take advantage of whatever extracurricular activities at MSU suit them best.
John L. Revitte
Professor
W-38 Owen Hall
(517) 353-8884
OR
C220G Snyder
(517) 884-1934
revitte@msu.edu
www.msu.edu/~revitte
John L. Revitte, Professor of Work, Leisure, and Labor Studies at MSU’s School of Labor and Industrial Relations, earned his BA at the University of Michigan's Residential College and an MS in Labor Studies from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Since 1977, John has taught courses for students, human resource professionals, and labor union leaders on such topics as collective bargaining, dispute resolution, employment and labor laws, labor history and current events, and leadership skills. In recent years he has taught freshman seminars on labor and oral history, work and leisure, and student involvement in workplace justice issues.
John also serves as MSU’s faculty grievance official, conducts research, and continues to write articles and book and film reviews. He co-authored several Michigan labor history videos, and he is often interviewed on labor events by television, radio, and newspaper journalists. Recently John appeared on the Michigan at Risk public television show on “Whatever Happened to Organized Labor,” and he can also be found on MSU’s spartanpodcast.com discussing auto negotiations.
In addition to traveling, John enjoys gardening, fishing, playing senior hockey, and MSU sports.
Alicia Rice
Administrative Assistant, WLPC
A-712 Wells Hall
(517) 432-6770
riceal@msu.edu
As WLPC administrative assistant, Alicia Rice oversees the day-to-day operation of the World Language Proficiency Center. She also is responsible for organizing training sessions, schedules testing, and acts as resource for testing questions.
Alicia has a BS in Criminal Justice from Florida State University in Tallahassee. She enjoys spending time with her family, reading from all genres, and traveling.
Patricia Rogers
Assistant Professor
C230G Snyder
(517) 884-1325
rogerspa@msu.edu
Patricia Rogers received a BA from the University of Washington and a PhD in History from Michigan State University. Most recently, she taught at Indiana University in Bloomington, where she held a joint appointment between the History Department and the Journal of American History. She also serves as Associate Editor for H-Net (Humanities and Social Sciences Online) at MSU.
Patti's research interests focus on the role of Anglo-American merchants in defining and shaping the Atlantic world, the British empire, and world history more broadly during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. A focus on the merchant community reveals aspects of the modern world such as cultural identity formation, commercial networks, and the flow of news.
Patti's current academic projects include learning "new media" for use both in the classroom and in research. In her spare time, she enjoys reading novels and needlework. In the coming year, she also hopes to resume her interest in photography and reading in French.
Patti looks forward to meeting the first cohort of RCAH students and collaborating with her new colleagues.
David Sheridan
Assistant Professor
C230C Snyder
(517) 884-1326
sherid16@msu.edu
www.msu.edu/~sherid16
David Sheridan has a BA from University of Michigan (where he focused on creative writing in the Residential College), an MFA in creative writing from Western Michigan University, and a PhD in English from Michigan State University. His interests include writing and rhetoric, especially the intersection of rhetoric, new media, and participation in public life. More specialized interests include "serious games" and simulations, instructional technology, the city of Detroit, and alternative learning spaces and structures (like writing centers and living-learning communities). Dave comes to the RCAH from the MSU Writing Center, where he formerly served as associate director and (briefly) director.
When he has a spare moment, Dave dabbles in photography and new media and looks for opportunities to play the drums in various garage-band venues.
Anita Skeen
Professor
C230F Snyder
(517) 432-2024
skeen@msu.edu
Anita Skeen received her MA and MFA from Bowling Green State University and her BS from Concord College in Athens, West Virginia. She is the author of four volumes of poetry, and her poetry, short fiction, and essays have appeared in numerous literary magazines and anthologies. She has completed a new volume of poetry, Never the Whole Story, begun while she was a Fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and is working on a collection of short stories and a first novel.
Since coming to Michigan State in 1990, Anita served as the Director of the Residential Option in Arts and Letters (ROIAL) Program, a residential living and learning program in the College of Arts and Letters, from 1997 to 2007.
Anita is the Director of the Creative Arts Festival and Writing Festival held annually at Ghost Ranch Conference Center in Abiquiu, New Mexico. She has taught in the MSU Study Abroad Program in England and Ireland, and served as a Visiting Writer and Writer-in Residence in numerous venues, most recently as the Sara Lura Matthews Self Writer in Residence at Converse College in Spartanburg, S.C., and as a Visiting Writer at the Mary Institute and St. Louis Country Day School in St. Louis, Missouri.
Mark Sullivan
Associate Professor
305 Music Practice Bldg.
(517) 355-7653
OR
C220K Snyder
(517) 884-1935
sullivan@msu.edu
Mark Sullivan received his masters and doctoral degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, majoring in music composition with a minor in musical performance and a cognate in computer music. Since 1985, he has taught composition, computer music, aesthetic theory, and courses dealing with the relation between art and society at MSU. He is currently Area Chair of Music Composition and Director of the Computer Music Studios in the College of Music.
Mark has written on the relationship between music, language, and movement, and for a number of years he developed and wrote computer programs to assist the process of composition. He has spoken at national and international conferences on the relationship between art, technology, and society; the relationship between computer programming and composing; and the pedagogy of composition. Mark's compositions for traditional acoustic instruments and for computer-generated sounds have been performed throughout the United States, in Europe, and in Asia.
Recently Mark has been studying the pedagogy of composition, as well as the integration of the study of the arts in the curriculum from kindergarten through the University level, and has received several grants to support integrative arts projects.
J. Estrella Torrez
Visiting Lecturer
C230L Snyder
(517) 884-1327
torrezjs@msu.edu
Estrella Torrez is a doctoral candidate whose work centers on language politics and migrant farmworker education. Having worked in the fields, Estrella attended migrant summer programs as a child and has worked as a migrant educator, including research for the Office of Migrant Education. Since childhood, she has continuously demonstrated her strong commitment to the migrant and Latina/o communities. Her interest in language politics stems from her struggle to maintain her heritage language (Spanish) and pass it on to her children.
This Midwest Xicana has taken an active role in multiple Latina/o organizations, ranging from working within grassroots organizations to establishing graduate mentorship programs at the university level. She has a BS in Elementary Education from Western Michigan and an MA in Early Childhood Multicultural Education and Bilingual Education from New Mexico, and she is writing her dissertation in Educational Thought and Sociocultural Studies with a concentration in Bilingual Education, also from New Mexico.
In her free time, Estrella enjoys vegan baking and running, in addition to practicing traditional Danza Mexicayotl (Aztec Dance).
Scot Yoder
Assistant to the Dean & Assistant Professor
C210C Snyder
(517) 353-8695
AIM: MSURCAH
yodersco@msu.edu
Scot Yoder has a BA from Goshen College, an MA from Bowling Green State University, and a PhD in Philosophy from Michigan State University. He taught at Seton Hall University before returning to MSU as a faculty member in the Department of Philosophy in 2001. His academic interests are in healthcare ethics, environmental ethics, and American pragmatism. Recently he has been studying the ethical issues that arise in Costa Rica's healthcare system and has led a study abroad program, Ethics and History of Development and Health Care, in Costa Rica during the summers of 2005 and 2006.
As Assistant to the Dean in the RCAH, Scot has been working with the architects and construction managers to design and develop the RCAH spaces in the Snyder-Phillips complex currently under renovation and construction. He is also responsible for student recruitment, student affairs, and for working with the Residence Life staff.