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| Pomona
College Promotes 11 Outstanding Professors |
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Pomona College, one of the nation’s leading liberal arts
colleges, has promoted eight members of the faculty to the
rank of full professor and three to associate professor. As
a group, Pomona’s faculty is known for their commitment to
great teaching, accessibility to students and their ongoing
involvement in research, writing and creative expression,
which translates into lively instruction in the classroom
and the laboratory.
The following eight faculty members were promoted to full
professor:
Jack Abecassis has been promoted to professor of
romance languages and literatures. He has been a faculty
member at Pomona since 1990. His courses include
Intermediate French; Advanced French; The Fantastic; Les
Moralistes: Public and Private Selves; and Les Philosophes:
Paradoxes of Nature. He also occasionally offers courses on
modern Israeli fiction. Abecassis has written extensively on
philosophical aspects of French literature and on French
Renaissance thinker Michel de Montaigne, and he is currently
working on a book about Greek-born French-Jewish novelist,
journalist, and diplomat Albert Cohen titled Albert Cohen:
Dissonant Voices. Abecassis earned his Ph.D. at the
University of California, Davis.
Roger Caron has been promoted to professor of
physical education. Caron, who joined the faculty in 1994,
is also head football coach for the Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens.
In addition to coaching the football team, he teaches the
courses Advanced Weight Training and Raquetball.
A 1985 graduate of Harvard, Caron was a Division I-AA First
Team Kodak and AP All American and two-time First Team
All-Ivy League. Caron was a fifth-round draft pick of the
Indianapolis Colts, with whom he played from 1985-1987. In
1987, he joined the staff of Williams College in
Massachusetts and helped coach the program to a 45-9-2
record in 7 years, including a 23-game win streak
(1988-1991) and an unprecedented 14 Little Three victories
in a row. Caron received his M. Ed from North Adams State
College.
A three-time recipient of the Pomona College Wig
Distinguished Teaching Award, Sidney Lemelle,
has been promoted to professor of history and black studies.
A member of the faculty since 1986, he is also chair of the
history department. Lemelle teaches the courses History of
Africa to 1800; History of Africa, 1800 to Present; Pan-Africanism
and Black Radical Traditions; Slavery and Freedom in the New
World; and Industrialization and Social Change in South
Africa. Lemelle’s research focuses on African American
history, slavery, South Africa, Pan-Africanism and the
effects of regional "circum-Caribbean" migration by groups
from Louisiana. He is the author of Pan-Africanism for
Beginners (1992) and a co-editor Imagining Home: Class,
Culture and Nationalism in the African Diaspora (1994) and
Class, Culture and Nationalism in the Pan-African Diaspora
(1993). Lemelle earned his Ph.D. from the University of
California, Los Angeles.
A member of the faculty since 1989, David Menefee-Libey
was promoted to professor of politics. He is coordinator of
the Public Policy Analysis Program and teaches courses in
Introduction to American Politics; The United States
Congress; Campaigns and Elections; Policy Implementation and
Evaluation; Education Politics and Policy; and Education
Policy Data Workshop. Menefee-Libey focuses his research on
the transformation of American campaigns and elections since
the 1950s, with special attention to the role of parties in
campaign strategies and methods, and is author of the book
The Triumph of Campaign-Centered Politics (2000). He led
field research on the 2000 U.S. House race between
Californians Jim Rogan and Adam Schiff, and on Schiff's
reelection campaign in 2002. His findings were presented in
2003 to the U.S. Supreme Court during hearings on the
constitutionality of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance
law. His second field of research is the politics of school
reform with a focus on urban public school districts, making
him particularly knowledgeable on education issues in the
2004 elections. Menefee-Libey received his doctorate from
the University of Chicago.
A member of the faculty since 1986, Sheila Pinkel
has been promoted to professor of art. She teaches courses
in History of Photography; Intermediate Photography;
Advanced Photography; Photography and The Politics of
Representation; Independent Study: Studio Art; and
Introductory Photography. She is an artist who has been
making work about her love of nature and her concern about
its destruction for the last 30 years. Recent works have
included pieces about the aftermath of the Indochina Wars
for Cambodian and Laotian Hmong refugees, lives of people
living in remote tribal communities of Pakistan, museum
guards, the history of the garment industry in Los Angeles
and, most recently, the prison-industrial complex. From 1983
to the present time she has been an international editor of
Leonardo, a publication dedicated to the intersection of
art, science and technology. She received her MFA from the
University of California, Los Angeles.
Lynn Rapaport has been promoted to professor
of sociology. A member of the faculty since 1989, she is
also chair of the sociology department and the anthropology
department. She teaches courses in Social Stratification;
Women's Roles in Society; Sociology of Emotions; History and
Development of Sociological Theory II: Contemporary
Theories; and History and Development of Sociological Theory
I: The Classical Tradition. Rapaport’s research focuses
primarily on the Holocaust, genocide and the sociology of
culture. She is currently working on a project that analyzes
how the Holocaust is portrayed in the movies, TV, comic
strips and other forms of popular culture from the 1940s to
present day. She is the author of Jews in Germany after the
Holocaust: Memory, Identity, and Jewish-German Relations.
She received her Ph.D. from Columbia University.
William Swartz has been promoted to professor
of physical education. He has been the Pomona-Pitzer men’s
soccer coach since 1986, coming to Pomona after coaching at
Thomas College, where he was named New England Coach of the
Year in 1985. While at Pomona, he was named the Far West
Coach of the Year in 1990. Swartz has served as the Mid-West
and Far-West Region Soccer Chair and is currently the
Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC)
men's soccer chair. With women's soccer coach Kris Martini,
Swartz has been instrumental in bringing professional U.S.
soccer teams to campus, as well as teams for other
countries, for practice sessions prior to the World Cup. He
completed his MBA at Thomas College.
James Taylor, a member of the faculty since
1991, has been promoted to professor of theatre. Taylor
teaches Theatre; Lighting and Set Design; Philippine
Theatre; Athol Fugard; and Shakespeare on Film. He also
designs departmental productions. Jim’s professional credits
as a designer and/or technical director include Summer
Repertory Theatre, Occidental Theatre Festival, The Kentucky
Shakespeare Festival, Lorretta Livingston and Dancers, and A
Noise Within. His research interests include contemporary
French scenography. He spent 1997-98 as a Fulbright Scholar
in the Philippines. Taylor received his MFA. from Southern
Methodist University. In 1997-98, he was a Fulbright
Lecturer in the Phillipines. He is also a lighting design
member of the United Scenic Artists.
The following three faculty members were promoted to
associate professor:
Promoted to associate professor of English and media
studies, Kathleen Fitzpatrick, has been a
member of the faculty since 1998. She teaches Special Topics
in American Literature and Topics in Media Theory. Her
primary research interests lie in the conjunction of
contemporary fiction and other media forms, including film,
television and the computer. She is currently revising a
book manuscript titled The Anxiety of Obsolescence: The
Death of the Novel, the Rise of New Media, and the Discourse
of Postmodernism. She earned her doctorate from New York
University.
Nicole Weekes was promoted to associate
professor of psychology. She came to Pomona in 1998 and
teaches Biological Basis of Psychopathology; Foundations in
Neuroscience; Human Neuropsychology; and Psychological
Approaches. Her research focuses on individual and group
differences in neuropsychological functioning, including the
effects of biological sex, handedness, stress and hormone
levels. Her publications include “Sex Differences in the
Brain” in Neuropsychology (1994) and numerous other articles
published in professional journals. She earned her doctorate
from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Heather Williams has been promoted to
associate professor of politics. A member of the faculty
since 1998, she teaches courses in Comparative Politics;
Introduction to International Relations; Global Politics of
Food and Agriculture; and Comparative Politics of Latin
America. Her research interests include contentious
politics, protest, social movements and insurgency. She is
particularly intrigued by the impact of economic changes on
forms of popular political participation, especially in
Latin America. Williams earned her Ph.D. at Yale University.
Pomona College is one of the nation’s premier liberal arts
institutions, offering a comprehensive program in the arts,
humanities, social sciences and natural sciences. Its
hallmarks include small classes, close relationships between
students and faculty, and a range of opportunities for
student research. Visit Pomona College on the web at
www.pomona.edu.
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