The
Department of English, Foreign Languages and Journalism is pleased to welcome
new and visiting faculty this fall.
For
one year we will have the pleasure of working with Jianhua Lian, Clara Del Rey,
and Philipp Schmidt. Jianhua, along with her daughter Tongtong, are visiting us
as part of our faculty exchange with Xidian University. Clara and Philipp are
Fulbright Lecturers visiting us from Spain and Germany, respectively. Kara
Bollinger and Mary Dockery join us as full-time instructors of English. James
Carviou and Bob Nulph will join our journalism faculty. Susan Martens will
assume leadership of Prairie Lands Writing Project and teach English Education
courses. Miguel Rivera-Taupier is a new Spanish professor.
Ms.
Kara Bollinger
Kara
is a native of Southeast Missouri. She received her Bachelor's degree from
Truman State University and her Master's in Rhetoric and Composition from the
University of Kansas. Most recently, she worked for a year in Moscow, Russia as
the Assistant Director of the Writing & Communication Center at the New
Economic School. Her chapbook "Attachment Theory" was released from
Dancing Girl Press in May and she's also had nonfiction and poetry published in
Midwestern Gothic, Prick of the Spindle, and Sleet Magazine. In
addition to writing, she's an avid gardener and runner.
Dr.
James Carviou
James
Carviou is from Marinette, a small town in northern Wisconsin near the upper
peninsula of Michigan. Ever since he started watching television news at the
tender age of five (and later reading news), he has been intrigued by the role
media plays in society which led him to pursue a lifelong career of research
and teaching. His research
focuses on social/new media, identity, and television. His primary interests
lie in the negotiation that takes place between representations/expressions of
identity in media and the social construction of identity in society. Carviou contributed
two chapters to a book that was published in Fall 2012: The Iconic Obama,
2007-2009: Essays on Mediated Representations of the Candidate and New
President. Carviou
enjoys Wisconsin sports. As a matter of fact, he grew up about 45 minutes away
from Lambeau Field and spent much of his childhood in Green Bay, Wisconsin. He
can’t wait to see what Aaron Rodgers is going to do this year! Other hobbies
include playing guitar, working out, and keeping up with the latest trends in
popular culture.
Ms. Clara Del Rey
Born in La Mancha, in the middle
south of Spain, Clara moved to Madrid to do her studies in Philosophy and
Education. She started her career teaching philosophy in a secondary education
center in Madrid, but discovered that her passion for languages after
being awarded with a European scholarship to teach Spanish in Belgium.
That experience encouraged Clara to apply for
a Fulbright FLTA scholarship, which has meant her arrival at MWSU. “I
hope this experience to be really enriching and let me discover a
part of this great country along with their culture and educational system.”
Ms. Mary Dockery
Mary is a Missouri Western graduate,
and she received her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Kansas in
2012. Her first collection of poetry, Mythology of Touch, was published
in 2012, and her second collection, One Last Cigarette, is forthcoming
in November from Honest Publishing. Originally from Holt County, MO, Mary is
the proud owner of a number of shirts that read "I survived the flood of
'93." She currently lives in St. Joseph, with her husband Dustin and their
dog, Rufio.
Ms.
Jianhua Lian
Having
obtained her Bachelor’s Degree of Art in Shaanxi Normal University in 2000, Jianhua
went to Xidian University to teach College English (which is compulsory in
every university in China) to the non-English majors. In 2009, she obtained her
Master’s Degree at Xidian University. “Teaching English is demanding and
difficult, especially for people like me who have never been to an
English-speaking country. Although I have been trying my best to teach the
least Chinglish, I always feel frustrated. That’s why I came to MWSU--- to
promote Chinese culture and to polish my English. Having been teaching English for 13 years, I didn’t
expect teaching my mother tongue would be so hard! Those simple
I-take–it-for-granted grammars and characters of it have made me go through the
most difficult time. Fortunately, all of
my students are very active and cooperative, which is a real relief to me. And
folks in EFLJ have tried every possible means to make my stay and teaching here
a pleasant experience. “One year is very short. Therefore, I just want to make
full use of every minute here to share my culture, to experience different
things and to improve myself.”
Dr. Susan
Martens,
Susan, originally
from Fremont, Nebraska, was a high school English teacher at a rural
school in her home state for twelve years. As a Co-Director of the
Nebraska Writing Project, she began working
with local teachers and
with faculty members at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she
eventually began a doctoral program focused on secondary English teacher preparation
and on place-based education. Research for her dissertation,
Writing
into the World: Writing Marathons for Teaching Writing, Place, and Advocacy,
has led to several forthcoming publications, including one in the
next issue of
Louisiana Literature, a vignette about the New Orleans
Writing Marathon in
College Composition and Communication (coming in late
2014). When she's not immersed in teaching, writing, and directing the Prairie
Lands Writing Project, she is an avid traveler and an aspiring foodie who loves
live music and Latin dancing.
Dr.
Bob Nulph
Graduating
in 1980 with a Bachelor of Science in Education - Biology & General
Science, Bob spent the next five years teaching biology at the high school
level, supplementing his poor salary with work as a radio DJ and tech directing,
set and light designing or directing over 30 theatrical productions. In 1987 he
earned a Master of Science in Communication and began a new career as a college
professor in Valdosta and Savannah, Georgia; St. Joseph, Missouri; Clarion,
Pennsylvania; and Chicago, Illinois teaching broadcast, film and digital
production as well as screenwriting and photography. In 2002, he earned a Ph.D.
in Film and Theatre from the University of Kansas. While teaching college, Bob continues
to work as an award-winning, independent producer/director. Bob was also a
contributing editor for VideoMaker Magazine for ten years. While the majority
of his work has been in the nonfiction world, Bob has also produced and
directed a number of narrative shorts and has three screenplays registered with
The Writer’s Guild and is currently working on two more.
Dr.
Miguel Rivera-Taupier
A
native of Lima (Peru), Miguel got his B.A. in Hispanic Literature at the
Universidad Catolica del Peru. He recieved his M.A. from Tulane University and
his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia, with a dissertation on Latin
American detective fiction. His current research focuses on the
representation of cities in Latin American fiction. He has published
articles on writers from Argentina and Peru, but his interests include other
countries. At MWSU he teaches Spanish language and Latin American culture
and literature.
Mr.
Philipp Schmidt
Philipp
received his BA and MA from Justus Liebig University in Giessen, Germany and
describes himself as “one of the lucky German Fulbright Scholars.” Philip hoped
to be placed in the Midwest, and was pleased to hear that he’d be going to
Missouri. Philip writes that ours “is a very special part of the US. German
media cover Boston to NYC and San Francisco to San Diego. I’ve never heard of
St. Joseph before, so I am eager to learn new things, so I am very excited to
learn about this region, its landmarks, and especially about the people, who without
exception have been very nice and welcoming.”
And
so we welcome our nine new colleagues
