Former Muncie area resident Dr. Kashama Mulamba named new chair at Olivet

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Dr. Kashama Mulamba

BOURBONNAIS, IL (08/07/2012)(readMedia)-- Dr. Kashama Mulamba, a graduate of Ball State University and former Muncie area resident, was recently appointed the new chair of the Department of English and Modern Languages at Olivet Nazarene University. Dr. Mulamba has been a professor at Olivet since 1997 and is excited to serve in this new capacity.

A specialist in sociolinguistics, pragmatics, language and culture, Dr. Mulamba is fluent in English, French, Ciluba, Lingala, nearly fluent in Swahili and Kisonge, and can read and translate Latin.

"I am impressed with Dr. Mulamba's great passion and energy about the future of the department as a whole. In fact, he is already working to develop new ways to integrate different languages and cultures into the life of Olivet," said Dr. Janna McLean, dean of Olivet's College of Arts and Sciences. "As a linguist and one for whom English is a second language, he has expertise in both main areas of EML."

An internationally recognized scholar, Dr. Mulamba has been published in Zaire, his homeland, in such journals as the "Zaire English Teachers Review" and "Les Cahiers de l'I.S.P.-Gombe," as well as in the "Bulletin de Liaison" in Gabon.

In addition, Dr. Mulamba has received such professional awards and recognition as the British Council Scholarship from Moray House College of Education in Scotland and a Fulbright Hays Scholarship from Ball State University. He also received both doctoral and post-doctoral fellowships from the Department of English at Ball State University, among other honors.

His many research grants include one from the Canadian Government to study the "Profile of the Zairean Secondary School Student" in 1974. He also received a round-trip Fulbright Travel Grant between the United States and Zaire to perform "A Cross-linguistic Study of Speech Act Performance by Multilingual Speakers in Zaire" in 1988-89.

"Besides Dr. Mulamba's long experience and highly credible professional stature, he is a fascinating person with a compelling story of immigration, advanced education, upward mobility, salvation, and churchmanship," notes Dr. Gregg Chenoweth, vice president for academic affairs. "This personal-professional brew mixes very well around his ambition for the department. Since English and Modern Languages touches every ONU student, many hundreds more will come under his direct influence in the classroom, but thousands more indirectly as he shepherds colleagues, curricula, service, and scholarship, and is a boundary-spanner to various other University units across campus."

Dr. Mulamba and his wife, Madolie, are the parents of five children. Four - Gentille, Paty, Nana, and Oeuvre - live in the Midwest, and the eldest, Godee, lives in the Congo in Africa.

Olivet Nazarene University is an accredited Christian, liberal arts university offering more than 100 areas of undergraduate and graduate study, including the Doctor of Education in ethical leadership. Olivet has one main campus in Bourbonnais, Ill. - just 50 miles south of Chicago; three sites: Rolling Meadows and Oak Brook, Ill., and Hong Kong; and more than 100 School of Graduate and Continuing Studies learning locations throughout Chicagoland and the Midwest. From Oxford to Tokyo, hundreds of Olivet students also experience the global classroom each year, whether through study abroad opportunities or worldwide mission trips.

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