4 Faculty Receive Tenure

Four faculty members have received promotions incurring tenure effective July 1. Additionally, six faculty members were promoted to full professor, and eight adjunct faculty were promoted.

Newly tenured faculty:

Mary Alice Haddad, associate professor of government, has taught at Wesleyan since 2004. Her scholarship studies comparative politics, with a focus on civil society, and a regional specialization in East Asia. She is the author of Politics and Volunteering in Japan: A Global Perspective (Cambridge, 2007), Building Democracy in Japan (Cambridge, forthcoming in 2012), numerous articles and book chapters, and has delivered more than 25 invited talks and conference presentations. She is currently working on a project about environmental politics in East Asia. She has received numerous awards and fellowships from organizations such as the Japan Foundation, the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies, the East Asian Institute, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. She received her B.A. from Amherst College, M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Washington, and served as a visiting scholar at Keio and Kobe Universites in Japan.

Elvin Lim, associate professor of government, came to Wesleyan in 2008. He specializes in American political development and presidential studies, with a focus on presidential rhetoric, and in language and politics. He is the author of The Anti-Intellectual Presidency: The Decline of Presidential Rhetoric from George Washington to George W. Bush (Oxford, 2008), several articles and book chapters, is completing a book The Lovers’ Quarrel: Federalists v. Anti-Federalists, 1787-2010, for Oxford, and has delivered more than 20 invited talks and conference presentations. He is an active public intellectual whose writing is frequently published in print media and online, and he is regularly interviewed on radio and television news. He holds a B.A., M.Sc., M.A., and D. Phil. from the University of Oxford.

Yonatan Malin, associate professor of music, came to Wesleyan in 2004. He specializes in music theory, and his research has focused on the German Lied (art song) in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, especially songs for voice and piano by Hensel, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Wolf, and Schoenberg. He is the author of Songs in Motion: Rhythm and Meter in the German Lied (Oxford, 2010), three articles, a review essay, and has delivered more than 20 talks and conference presentations. He holds a B.A. from Harvard University and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

Dana Royer, associate professor of earth and environmental sciences, came to Wesleyan in 2005. His research focuses on the earth’s climatic and ecological history, by analyzing the size and shape of fossil leaves and their stomatal distributions to reconstruct ancient levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, in order to discern the relationship between atmospheric carbon dioxide and global temperatures over geologic time. He was awarded the Donath Medal (Young Scientist Award) by the Geological Society of America in 2010, and the Ebelman award from the International Association of Geochemistry in 2007. He has received grants from the National Science Foundation, the Australian Research Council, and the American Chemical Society. He is the lead or co-author of 32 peer-reviewed publications, he has published 32 conference abstracts as well as invited commentaries in three journals, and he has delivered ten invited conference talks. His B.A. is from the University of Pennsylvania and his Ph.D. is from Yale University.

Faculty promoted to full professor:

Wai Kiu (Billy) Chan, professor of mathematics, has taught at Wesleyan since 1999. He specializes in number theory, in particular of quadratic forms, and related areas such as lattices in Euclidean spaces, modular forms, and linear algebraic groups. He earned a B.Sc. and M.Phil. from the University of Hong Kong, and a Ph.D. from The Ohio State University.

Demetrius Eudell, professor of history, has taught at Wesleyan since 2003. A specialist in intellectual history and African American and Caribbean history, his research focuses on how discourses of race have been foundational to modernity. He holds a B.A. from Dartmouth College, conducted post-baccalaureate study at the University of Dakar, Senegal, and earned his Ph.D. from Stanford University.

Lori Gruen, professor of philosophy, has taught at Wesleyan since 2000. Her recent work on animals and ethics is part and parcel of her longstanding interests. She specializes in practical ethics, environmental philosophy, feminist philosophy, and social and political philosophy. She received her B.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Colorado.

Ethan Kleinberg, professor of history and letters, has taught at Wesleyan since 2001. He is an intellectual historian who works in the fields of critical theory, literature, philosophy, and historiography and has a special interest in the influence of Heidegger. He holds a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Magda Teter, professor of history and the Jeremy Zwelling Professor of Jewish Studies, came to Wesleyan in 2000. Her work focuses on Jewish-Christian relations in the post-Reformation era, especially in eastern Europe. She specializes in early modern religious and cultural history, with emphasis on Jewish-Christian relations in eastern Europe, and cultural transmission among Jews and Christians across Europe in the early modern period. She received an M.A. from the School of Oriental Studies at the University of Warsaw, Poland, and her M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. from Columbia University.

Elizabeth Willis, professor of English and the Shapiro-Silverberg Professor of Creative Writing, has taught at Wesleyan since 2002. She is a poet and a scholar of poetry. Her critical writing on poetry and visual culture focuses on the intersections of public and private life, the effects of political and technological developments on aesthetic production, and the relation of poets to their sources. She holds a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire, and a Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Faculty promoted to adjunct professor:

Drew Black, adjunct professor of physical education, came to Wesleyan in 1998. He is the head coach of wrestling, and head strength and conditioning coach. He holds a B.S. from Syracuse University and an M.A. from Kent State University.

Octovio Flores, adjunct professor of romance languages, came to Wesleyan in 1997. He specializes in the teaching of Spanish. His B.A. and M.A. are from the University of the Americas, Mexico; his Ph.D. is from the University of Pittsburgh.

Jay Hoggard, adjunct professor of music, has been teaching at Wesleyan since 1991. He is a vibraphonist and composer who specializes in jazz, directs the jazz orchestra, and serves as the commencement music director. He holds a B.A. and an M.A. from Wesleyan University.

Christopher Potter, adjunct professor of physical education, came to Wesleyan in 2003. He is men’s ice hockey coach and co-head golf coach. He holds a B.S. and an M.A. from the University of Connecticut.

John Raba, adjunct professor of physical education, has been at Wesleyan since 1996. He is head coach of men’s lacrosse, teaches strength training, and serves as athletics recruiting coordinator. He holds a B.S. and an M. Ed. from the University of New Haven.

Joseph Reilly, adjunct professor of physical education, has been at Wesleyan since 2007. He holds a B.A. from Trinity College in Hartford and an M.B.A. from the University of Rhode Island.

Faculty promoted to adjunct associate professor:

Marcela Oteiza, adjunct associate professor of theater, came to Wesleyan in 2004. She specializes in scenic design. She holds two B.F.A degrees from the University of Chile, and an M.F.A from the California Institute of the Arts.

Etsuko Takahashi, adjunct associate professor of Asian languages and literatures, has been teaching at Wesleyan since 2003. She specializes in the teaching of the Japanese language and foreign language pedagogy, and has served as the Japanese Language Program Coordinator since 2004. Her B.A. and M.A. are from the University of Iowa, and her Ph.D. is from the University of Pittsburgh.

“Please join us in congratulating these wonderfully productive scholars and teachers,” President Michael Roth wrote in a recent announcement. “We are fortunate to have them in our Wesleyan community.”

More information is online here.