Five new Maryville College faculty members join the Scots community for 2025-26 academic year
Aug. 15, 2025
When classes begin at Maryville College for the 2025-26 academic year, five new faculty members will be on hand to welcome Scots to another year of learning.
Four new visiting lecturers and an assistant professor are among the new cohort of educators, bringing the total of full-time faculty members at MC to 76. Fall semester classes begin on Wednesday, Aug. 20, and continue through final exams, which conclude on Wednesday, Dec. 10.
“Our new faculty are creative and thoughtful teachers and scholars, all understanding of the ways a small, private liberal arts education benefits students,” said Dr. Liz Perry-Sizemore, vice president and dean of the College. “I’m excited about the ways their curiosity and engagement will appear in the classroom and across campus.”
The new faculty members include:
Dr. Bethany Campbell
Campbell’s tenure at MC actually began in January for the beginning of the spring semester, but she’ll be joining her first-year colleagues for traditional new faculty orientation activities throughout the coming academic year. A visiting lecturer of biology in the Maryville College Division of Natural Sciences, Campbell earned a bachelor’s degree in cell and molecular biology from King University in Bristol, Tennessee, before beginning her Ph.D. journey in biochemistry and cellular and molecular biology at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. She followed her thesis advisor to Boston College, where she completed her Ph.D. in the fall of 2024 after defending a dissertation titled “Spatiotemporal regulation of Cdc42 activity directs specific membrane trafficking events at distinct cell sites.” Her collaborative research has been published in such scientific publications as the Journal of Cell Biology, and she was a founding member of Project Bridge, a community of graduate and post-doctoral trainees in the Department of Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology at UT-Knoxville who work to showcase STEM research in the community. This fall, Campbell will teach BIO115: Principles of Cellular Biology, BIO149: Cancer Biology and BIO301: Cell and Tissue Biology.
Landin Eldridge
Also a previous adjunct instructor at Maryville College, Eldridge is now a visiting lecturer of art in the MC Division of Fine Arts. As an undergraduate, Eldridge was an art and theater double major who earned a bachelor’s degree from Davidson College in Davidson, North Carolina, and went on to receive a Master of Fine Arts degree (with a concentration in painting and drawing) from UT-Knoxville. Her works have been featured in numerous exhibits at both her bachelor’s and master’s alma maters, and she’s served as director of Gallery 1010 on the UT-Knoxville campus. Her teaching experience dates back to 2018, when she served as a ceramics instructor at a summer camp in Maine; as a graduate teaching assistant at UT, she taught such courses as Introduction to Art (Space), Introduction to 4D Art and Introduction to Art (Surface). Her fall classes include ART122: Painting I, ART140: Perspectives in Art and ART222: Painting II.
Dr. Nathan Higdon ’03
Higdon is another familiar face around MC, having served as an adjunct instructor in the Division of Social Sciences for the fall 2024 semester. He obtained his bachelor’s degree in Spanish from Maryville College and a year later, co-founded the company L’Espace, Inc., a conglomerate of ground transportation companies for which he still serves as chief financial officer. After earning a Master’s in Business Administration from Pennsylvania State University in 2013 and a Ph.D. in business administration from Oklahoma State University in 2017, he began his teaching career as a senior lecturer responsible for undergraduate economics and marketing courses at Mercy University in Dobbs Ferry, New York. He’s served as a senior lecturer at Indiana State University, and at Maryville College last fall, he taught a junior-level business course, as well as marketing research. Higdon’s fall course load includes BUS201: Principles of Management, BUS349: HR Management and Organizational Development and BUS351, serving as a Senior Study advisor.
Dr. Robyn Rocklein
A musician, educator and scholar, Rocklein comes to the MC Division of Fine Arts as a visiting lecturer of music. She received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Arizona in Tucson and earned her Doctorate of Musical Arts in vocal performance from Arizona State University, where she also served as a graduate teaching assistant. A veteran voice teacher with her own studio (Rocklein Voice Studio), she taught students in the metropolitan areas of Tucson and Phoenix in Arizona, and Tampa, Bradenton and Sarasota in Florida. For a decade, she was part of the adjunct liberal arts faculty at Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, where she taught music appreciation, art comparison courses, writing courses for artists and designers, and more. She has also served as an adjunct instructor at the University of South Florida in Sarasota and at the University of Tampa, and from 2013 to 2022, she was an education ambassador and teaching artist with the Venice (Florida) Symphony Orchestra. At Maryville College, her fall course load includes MUS140: Perspectives in Music and more.
Dr. Kavita Singh
Singh joins the MC faculty as the new assistant professor of business in the Division of Social Sciences, having recently obtained her Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro’s Bryan School of Business and Economics. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in history from Delhi University’s Lady Shri Ram College in New Delhi, India; a master’s in fashion management from the National Institute of Fashion Technology in New Delhi; and an MBA from the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad, India. After serving as an adjunct instructor and lecturer in India and the United Arab Emirates, she came to UNC-Greensboro as a research assistant in 2021, worked as an academic advisor for undergrads from the fall of 2022 through the spring of 2024, and last fall was an instructor of record who taught “Introduction to Apparel Industry.” Her background in fashion, marketing, retail and merchandising are reflected in her work history as well, with brand management experience in India working for Levis Strauss, Arvind Brands, Indus Clothing and more. For the coming semester at MC, she’ll be teaching BUS242: Marketing, BUS244: Consumer Behavior, BUS349: Marketing Focus and BUS351, also serving as a Senior Study advisor.
Promotions and Title Changes
- Dr. Gabie Kerr was promoted to the rank of associate professor of management.
- Dr. Jennifer Oody, associate professor of exercise science, was named as the new chair of the Division of Health Sciences and Outdoor Studies.
- Dr. Will Phillips, professor of English, was named as the new chair of the Division of Languages and Literature.
- Scott Steele was promoted to associate professor of English.
- Dr. Rayanne Streeter was promoted to associate professor of sociology.
- Rebecca Treadway was promoted to the rank of (full) professor of accounting.
- Andy Vaught was promoted to assistant professor of theatre.