Eight faculty members join the ranks of Maryville College educators for 2024-25 academic year
Aug. 21, 2024
Maryville College will welcome eight new faculty members when the 2024-25 academic year begins, increasing the number of full-time educators to 75.
Six new assistant professors and two visiting lecturers are among the new cohort and will take their places in their respective classrooms when the new academic year begins Aug. 21, the first day of classes.
“I’m excited to welcome our new faculty to Maryville College,” said Dr. Liz Perry-Sizemore, vice president and dean of the College who began her own tenure as a Scot on July 1.
“Our students will benefit greatly from their commitment to teaching and learning, their love for their academic disciplines, and their enthusiasm for the liberal arts experience,” she added. “I look forward to the many ways our new colleagues will provide energizing and meaningful contributions to the life of Maryville College.”
New members of the Maryville College faculty include:
Di Bei
Bei, a 2018 Biology graduate of Randolph College, recently completed her second master of fine arts in fiction, this one from the University of Mississippi. She joins the MC Division of Languages and Literature as an assistant professor of writing/communication. Bei earned her first master’s in 2021 from Boise State University and is the recipient of numerous awards for her work in fiction and screenplay contests, including the Patty Friedman Writing Contest. Her 2019 novel, The Horse Ballerina (白马伶娜), tells the story of a ballerina with a passion for horse racing whose post-accident journey to America leads to her discovery of a horse named Romeo; it’s currently in production as a web TV series. She’s also the writer and star of the independent film “The Chinese Tourist,” which has been screened as a featured selection at several film festivals. As a graduate teaching assistant at Ole Miss and Boise State, she led fiction workshops and taught classes on world literature, form and theory and more.
Sarah Bernstein
Bernstein is the newest addition to the MC Division of Fine Arts, where she’ll serve as an assistant professor of art. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in drawing and printmaking from Washington University in St. Louis, and her master of fine arts in studio art from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, where she also served as a lab tech for both the smART Digital Lab and the 2D and 3D Foundations Studio. Her work has hung in numerous galleries and art spaces throughout East Tennessee, and Bernstein has held a number of art residencies overseas, in countries such as Malaysia, Thailand, Greece and France. She’s held several teaching positions since 2020, including as an instructor of such courses as “Intro to 4D Art” and “Intro to Film and Video Art,” and most recently served as an adjunct lecturer at the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon, where she taught Design and “Foundation of Time Arts.” Her works can be found on her website at www.sarahbernstein.info.
Savanna Evans Gregory ’20
It’s something of a homecoming for Savanna Evans Gregory ’20, who will join the Division of Health Sciences and Outdoor Studies as a visiting lecturer of health and wellness promotion. During her previous tenure on the Maryville College campus, Gregory earned a bachelor’s degree in Exercise Science, and she’s currently working toward the completion of two graduate degrees: a master of public health, and a master of public health in nutrition with a community health education focus. As an undergrad, she served as a nutrition-focused intern with both Blount County Public Schools and Second Harvest Food Bank of East Tennessee; on the MC campus, she worked as a student ambassador and an academic mentor, eventually graduating magna cum laude. Her post-graduate teaching assistant work at UT involved teaching basic nutrition courses.
Dr. Sara Howe
As the new visiting lecturer of management in the Division of Social Sciences, Howe brings a distinctive regional focus to MC. Although she completed her Ph.D. coursework at Bellevue University, she also received her doctoral degree in business administration (DBA) from Liberty University, the dissertation of which was titled “The Impact of Strategic Planning in Small Business: Empirical Evidence from East Tennessee.” A graduate of Rasmussen College for her bachelor’s, Howe obtained her master’s from Benedictine University, and since 2022 she’s served as a professor of business, DBA dissertation chair and faculty senate curriculum chair at Westcliff University in Irvine, California. From 2017-2019, she also served as head of the bachelor’s degree business program and as a professor of business at Hiwassee College in Madisonville, Tennessee, and for 10 years as a graphic design and marketing instructor at the Minneapolis Community Center.
Dr. Jeff Kelly
Kelly, previously an adjunct instructor at MC, joins the Division of Behavioral Sciences as an assistant professor of neuroscience having recently completed his Ph.D. at the University of Tennessee, the focus of which is on the neurobiological mediators of stress resilience and experience-based plasticity. He earned his bachelor’s in experimental psychology from the University of Montana and a master’s in behavioural neuroscience from Liverpool John Moores University in England. His professional research experience includes stints in the Cooper Lab and the Environmental Psychology Innovation Center at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, the Swaney Epigenetics Laboratory at Liverpool John Moores, the Wright Evolutionary Behavioural Ecology Laboratory at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, the Szalda-Petree Laboratory at the University of Montana and the Brun and Kjelstrup Neurobiology Laboratory at the University of Tromsø. At MC, he taught the courses Drugs and Behavior and Advanced Neuroscience Seminar during the 2023-24 academic year.
Dr. Sarah McDowell
Having recently completed her Ph.D. in science education at Oklahoma State University, McDowell will join the Division of Education as an assistant professor of education for the 2024-25 academic year. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Missouri, and a master’s in elementary education from East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma, in 2004. For almost two decades, she taught various math and science courses at the elementary, junior high and high school level in Oklahoma before enrolling in OSU’s Ph.D. program, and as a graduate research assistant, she was tasked with building culturally relevant earth-sky curriculum for middle schoolers with three Native American Nations. She also served as the STEM Engagement Hub coordinator and taught the course Science in the Elementary School, and her areas of research included teacher instructional strategies and opportunities for STEM students in rural Oklahoma.
Dr. Tess Ann Simpson
Having recently completed her Ph.D. in psychology at East Tennessee State University, Simpson is another addition to the Division of Behavioral Sciences, where she’ll serve as an assistant professor of developmental psychology. A 2020 graduate of Tennessee Technological University, she obtained her master’s from ETSU, where her Ph.D. dissertation was titled “Informed consent document delivery: Effects on comprehensibility and willingness to participate in a sample of caregivers in Appalachia.” An experienced educator, she’s taught a number of Introduction to Psychology courses, as well as Child Psychology Science, Design and Analysis, and Learning and Cognition. Her research interests include metascience related to issues of procedural fidelity and diversity, equity and inclusion; application of community-based participatory research to developmental psychology; language development and temperament; and Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and trauma-informed care.
Dr. Katie Stephenson
Stephenson, currently completing her post-doctoral training through Harvard Medical School as a fellow at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital (in addition to post-doctoral fellowship work through the University of New England) with a research focus on sports-related concussions, will join the Division of Health Sciences and Outdoor Studies as an assistant professor of exercise science. She obtained her bachelor’s in biology from Missouri Southern State University, her master’s in kinesiology and Ph.D. in health, sport and exercise science from the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville. At Arkansas, she taught exercise and sports psychology and personal health courses to undergraduates and mentored undergraduate honors students on their theses. Her areas of research interest include determining the efficacy of clinical recommendations for concussion treatment and management; improving concussion education practices in the acute medical care setting; and discerning risk factors for protracted recovery.
Maryville College Faculty Promotions and Title Changes
- Dr. Cynthia Gardner, who currently serves as the chair of the Division of Education, was promoted to the rank of (full) professor of education.
- Dr. Scott Henson was promoted to (full) professor of political science.
- Dr. Andrew Irvine was promoted to (full) professor of philosophy and religion.
- Dr. Sheri Matascik was promoted to (full) professor of music.
- Dr. Sharon May, currently the chair of the Division of Social Sciences, was promoted to (full) professor of economics.
- Dr. Will Phillips was promoted to (full) professor of English.
- Dr. Phillip Sherman, the current chair of the Division of Humanities, was promoted to (full) professor of religion.
- Dr. Doug Sofer was promoted to (full) professor of history.
- Dr. Barbara Johnson was promoted to the rank of associate professor of computer science, with tenure.
- Christina Seymour was promoted to associate professor of writing/communication with tenure.
- William White was promoted to associate professor of American Sign Language-English interpreting, with tenure.
- Dr. Aqualus Gordon, an associate professor of psychology, was granted tenure.
- Two educators have been named lecturers, a change from their visiting lecturer statuses: Dr. Shannon Heath and MaryLeith Turner in the Division of Languages and Literature.
- Two previous visiting lecturers in the Division of Natural Sciences have been named as assistant professors: Dr. Shiyuan Xu and Dr. Julie Konkel.
- Adrienne Schwarte, professor of art and design and coordinator of the Sustainability Studies minor, was named as the new chair of the Division of Fine Arts.
- Dr. Jennifer Oody, associate professor of exercise science, will serve as the interim chair of the Division of Health Sciences and Outdoor Studies while Dr. Traci Haydu is on a semester-long sabbatical.
