New faces in faculty, staff at Elizabethtown College

ELIZABETHTOWN, PA (09/16/2014)(readMedia)-- Elizabethtown College started the fall semester with some new faculty faces in the departments of Engineering and Physics, Business, Fine and Performing Arts, Education, Modern Language, Social Work, Psychology, Communications, Religious Studies, and Politics, Philosophy, and Legal Studies. Also the College added directors in the High Center, Student Rights and Responsibilities, the Center for Community and Civic Engagement, High Library and Campus Security and coordinators in the Office of Residence Life.

New faculty members are:

John N. Angelis, assistant professor of management in the Department of Business. He earned his bachelor's degree in industrial and systems engineering from Youngstown State University in 2002 and his doctoral degree in operations research from Case Western Reserve University in 2009. His dissertation was on Decision Models for Growing Firms: Obstacles and Opportunities.

He previously taught at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Rochester Institute of Technology and worked for General Electric and the United States government. His research focuses on entrepreneurship and technology issues for small businesses and startups and studying the intersection of innovation -- open or closed -- and social networks. Angelis specializes in teaching courses in technology/innovation and operations management.

Kristi Arnold, an assistant professor of art in the Department of Fine and Performing Arts. Before coming to Elizabethtown College, she lived in New York and Sydney, Australia. In the latter, she taught and studied visual art for three years under painter Matthys Gerber.

Arnold earned a bachelor's degree in fine arts from the University of Kansas in 2001 and her master's degree in fine arts from the University of Connecticut in 2005. After graduate school she completed a Fulbright Fellowship at the Akademia Sztuk Pieknych w Krakowie in Krakow, Poland. Her work has been exhibited in the United States, Belgium, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Bulgaria, Poland and Austria.

She was Artist in Residence at the Frans Masereel Centrum in Belgium, ARTSPACE in Australia, the University of Georgia in Athens, the Lawrence Art Center in Kansas, and she was a visiting faculty member at The University of Kansas.

Monica Belfatti, assistant professor of early childhood education in the Department of Education, teaches foundations of teaching and learning as well as early childhood literacy and science methods.

She earned her bachelor's degree from Swarthmore College and her master's and doctoral degrees from University of Pennsylvania.

Belfatti taught undergraduate and graduate courses in education at Swarthmore College and the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania before coming to Elizabethtown. She is a certified elementary teacher with experience in public and private school classroom teaching.

Research interests are literacy and science with a focus on how texts, print-bound and multimedia formats, and instructional contexts mediate children's understandings of the natural and social world. She has presented her scholarly work at the annual meetings of the Literacy Research Association and the American Educational Research Association.

Vanessa Borilot, assistant professor of French in the Department of Modern Languages. She earned a master's degree in French and Franophone literatures and cultures from University of Delaware. She will defend her dissertation "Unsilencing the father figure in the literatures of the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean" at the end of September.

For the past five years, she has been teaching at the University of Iowa.

Dan Chen, assistant professor of political science and Asian studies in the Department of Politics, Philosophy and Legal Studies, earned her doctoral degree in political science this year from the University of Kansas. She also earned a master's degree in political science from Marquette University and a bachelor's degree in International politics from the University of International Relations in Beijing, China.

Her teaching and research interests include comparative politics, public opinion, political communication and authoritarian duration.

Anne Gross, assistant professor of music in the Department of Fine and Performing Arts, holds vocal performance degrees from the University of Michigan, School of Music, Theatre and Dance; the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music; and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music.

She is a recitalist, oratorio soloist and master clinician. She joined with internationally renowned collaborative pianist Martin Katz to record the audio examples for his book The Complete Collaborator: The Pianist as Partner, published by Oxford University Press in May 2009.

Gross chaired the voice department for six years at Belvoir Terrace, a performing arts camp for girls aged 8-16, located in Lenox, Massachusetts. Before coming to Elizabethtown she was a faculty member at Anderson University in Indiana and Whitman College in Washington.

Katherine Hughes, assistant professor in the Department of Communications, teaches courses in multimedia production, digital photography and visual communications. Before joining the faculty at Elizabethtown College she taught at Loyola University Maryland in Baltimore and James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, where she earned a bachelor's degree in mass communications.

She earned a master's degree in television/radio/film and a doctoral degree in mass communications from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse (New York) University

Prior to teaching, Dr. Hughes worked for six years in the fields of e-learning and web development as a designer and project manager.

Joseph Mahoney, professor in the Department of Psychology, teaches general psychology, child and adolescent development, and community psychology.

He earned a bachelor's degree from University of Minnesota in 1993 and a doctoral degree from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, in 1997. Mahoney did post-doctoral work at Stockholm (Sweden) University in 1999.

Recent research has focused on the developmental consequences related to how young people spend their out-of-school time including participation in extracurricular activities, after-school programs, sports and community-based organizations.

Prior to joining the faculty at Elizabethtown College, Mahoney was a professor of psychology at Yale University and a professor of education at the University of California, Irvine. He received the Society for Research in Child Development's Distinguished Congressional Policy Fellowship and served as lead education council for U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman.

Richard Newton, assistant professor in the Department of Religious Studies. Prior to coming to Elizabethtown he was an instructor in the Claremont Colleges Consortium and at CalPolyPomona University. He comes to Pennsylvania from Texas, by way of California.

He did his doctoral work in Religious Studies at Claremont Graduate University with a focus on critical comparative scriptures. Before earning his master's in divinity degree at Southern Methodist University, he earned a bachelor's degree in religion and anthropology.

Joseph Seidel, a visiting lecturer in the Department of Engineering and Physics, earned a bachelor's degree in civil engineering at Brigham Young University, a master's degree in civil and environmental engineering at The University of Michigan and a doctoral degree in civil engineering from Purdue University. While at Purdue he taught as a graduate student instructor and completed one year of a post doctorate.

For the last year he has been teaching civil engineering and geoscience courses as an adjunct professor at Pennsylvania State University in Harrisburg. His research interests include sustainability in engineering and bio additives in construction materials.

He is a licensed professional engineer in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania and in Ohio and Indiana. Seidel worked in industry as a civil engineer for Engineers, Surveyors and Associates in Toledo, where his primary responsibilities were in the site design of small civil construction projects.

Noelle St. Vil, assistant professor in the Department of Social Work, is teaching Social Problems and the Response of Social Welfare Institutions and Human Behavior in the Social Environment.

She earned a master's degree in social work in 2007 and her doctoral degree in 2012 from Howard University School of Social Work. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship focused on violence in the family at Johns Hopkins University.

Her research interests include healthy relationships, women's health, violence against women and girls, violence in the family and various issues pertaining to people of color. St.Vil has worked as the project coordinator on several grant-funded projects pertaining to violence against women and healthy relationships.

New College staff members are:

Richard Anglin '65 is director of member services with the High Center. He graduated from Elizabethtown College in 1965 with a bachelor's degree in business administration. He worked his way through college at Sears, Roebuck and Co., and after 20 years as national retail marketing manager in Chicago, Ill., he was recruited to The Sherwin William Co. as president of the stores. Five years later he was recruited as divisional president of the American Maize Products Co., in Connecticut, responsible for centralizing five companies under one umbrella that was a competitor to Home Depot and Lowes. He was then president and CEO of Robertson Factories in Massachusetts until 1996. I began Composite Business Resources, a consulting business, until he retired and relocated back to Harrisburg in 2001. He began volunteering as Executive in Residence for the High Center in August 2013 and came aboard as a part-time director of Member Services this summer.

Susan Asbury is now director of Student Rights and Responsibilities. She began working at Elizabethtown College's Office of Residence Life in 2010. As the associate director, she managed the Living Learning Communities and Student Directed Learning Communities programs. She also served on the Student Conduct and Appeal Boards, managed low-level conduct cases and, recently, earned certification as a Title IX investigator.

Asbury has degrees in history, a bachelor's from Berry College and a master's from the University of South Carolina. She is currently working on a doctoral degree at Pennsylvania State University.

Matthew Ascah is director of the Center for Community and Civic Engagement. He earned his bachelor's degree in music from the Schreyer Honors College of the Pennsylvania State University and a graduate degree from Bowling Green State University. Prior to coming to E-town, he held administrative appointments at Bowling Green (Ohio) State University and Queen's University and York University both in Canada. He has taught service-learning courses in cultural theory and critical media studies and his research examined the intersections of gender, race and violence in popular music.

He is committed to collective action and social justice, believing that a service-focused life represents one alternative to the disconnection and alienation that characterizes much of contemporary society, and that place-based educational models develop strong roots for success.

Brandon Jackson is coordinator of multicultural programs and residential communities in the Office of Residence Life. He earned his bachelor's degree in psychology from Georgia College & State University in 2005 and his master's degree in public administration in 2009.

He was assistant director of admissions at Georgia College & State University for five years and the African-American outreach and retention coordinator at Joliet (Illinois) Junior College for five years.

Cody Miller started at Elizabethtown in early August as an area coordinator in the Office of Residence Life. During the preceding year, he served as a team leader for a traveling full-time service group in central California. Before that, he was a residence hall director at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, where he completed his graduate degree in higher education administration. Originally from York, Pa., he earned his undergraduate degree from Messiah College.

Sarah Penniman joined the College as librarian and director of High Library. She graduated from Dickinson College with a bachelor's degree in Spanish and from American University with a master's degree in literature. She also holds a master's degree in library and information science from Drexel University. Before coming to Elizabethtown, Penniman worked in various library capacities at Delaware Valley College in Bucks County. She enjoys working in academic libraries because she loves helping students with their research needs.

Andrew Powell is the College's new director of Campus Security. Prior to joining E-town, he was assistant director of support services in the Department of Public Safety at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

Powell earned his bachelor's degree in criminal justice from York College of Pennsylvania, where he also worked as a public safety officer, and a juris doctor from American University Washington College of Law. He is a member of the bar and, though he doesn't practice law, he felt having the JD degree offered more versatility. He holds certifications as an APCO Public Safety Telecommunicator Instructor and Active Shooter Response for Unarmed Patrol Instructor.

Anna Ruth Smith is director of member services at the High Center. She has strong leadership and operational background skills after working more than 30 years in small business and financial services industries. She was president of TVMA Inc., a consulting company she start, which provided operational and technology services to the mortgage banking and banking industry. Prior to TVMA, she held executive roles at American Home Bank, Keystone Financial and Parent Federal Savings Bank. She earned a business administration degree from Penn State York.

Elizabethtown College, located in historic Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, is a private coed institution offering more than four dozen liberal arts, fine and performing arts, science and engineering, business, communications and education degrees. Learn more: http://www.etown.edu/about/

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