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Board of regents promotes 10 faculty members, grants tenure to three

By Kathryn Brown '06 and Kathleen Schindler '06
March 4, 2003

Five faculty members have been promoted to full professor at St. Olaf College, upon recommendation from the tenure and promotion committee, President Christopher M. Thomforde and Dean of the College Jim May. The St. Olaf Board of Regents also promoted five faculty members to associate professor, and three of those were granted tenure.

Promoted to full professor were faculty members Mark Allister, English; Mary Cisar, romance languages; Robert Hanson, chemistry; Nancy Paddleford, music; and Kathy Shea, biology.

Receiving a promotion to associate professor were Kathryn Ananda-Owens, music; Jeane DeLaney, history; Jeanine Grenberg, philosophy; Julie Legler, mathematics; and Marc Robinson, Russian and Central European studies. Ananda-Owens, Grenberg, and Legler were also granted tenure.

"The achievements of this year's group are impressive," said provost and dean May. "I am proud of these teachers, scholars and citizens of the St. Olaf community, and I look forward to working with them for many years to come."

Allister teaches courses in American literature, 19th- and 20th-century poetry, men's studies, and popular culture. He is also involved with instruction of the American Conversation program at St. Olaf. After graduating from California State University, Allister received his M.A. and Ph.D. in English at the University of Washington and joined the St. Olaf faculty in 1986.

Cisar graduated Magna Cum Laude from Kalamazoo College and received her Ph.D. in French studies at Brown University. She was recently appointed to the position of college registrar and assistant vice president for academic affairs, and spent the previous academic year administering the Center for Technology Across Languages and Cultures.

Hanson received his bachelor's degree in science at the California Institute of Technology and his Ph.D. at Columbia University. In 1988, he was named a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator, one of few such awards given to a faculty member at a four-year college. Hanson is an active member of the Minnesota Soaring Club and has been a private pilot since 1997.

Paddleford joined the St. Olaf faculty in 1974. She earned her master's degree in piano performance from Indiana University and a doctor of musical arts degree from the University of Minnesota. Paddleford has been an artist-in residence at the University of Costa Rica and has performed as a soloist and with other musicians in the United States, Costa Rica, France, Germany and Switzerland.

After receiving her Ph.D. in biology at the University of Colorado, Shea became a member of the biology department at St. Olaf in 1985. Her interests in plant ecology and the factors that influence demographic, morphological and genetic variation within and among populations has led her to teach a variety of biology courses at the college.

Winner of first prize in the 1993 Neale-Silva Young Artists Competition, pianist Kathryn Ananda-Owens enjoys an active career as performer and teacher. She received degrees from Oberlin College, Oberlin Conservatory and the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University.

DeLaney earned her B.A. in interdisciplinary studies in international development at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She entered a master's program in Latin American Studies at Stanford University and then went on to earn a Ph.D. in Latin American History.

Grenberg received a Ph.D. and M.A. from Emory University and a B.A. from Fordham. Her specialties include ethics, Kant and the history of modern philosophy, with particular interest in virtue ethics and moral psychology. She is currently working on a book about humility.

Following eight years at the National Institutes of Health, Legler joined the St. Olaf faculty in 2001. She earned a B.A. and M.S. in Statistics at the University of Minnesota and a doctorate in biostatistics at Harvard University.

Robinson joined the St. Olaf Russian department in 1991, specializing in Russian film, culture and literature. He earned his B.A. from Purdue University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Russian Literature from University of Illinois.

St. Olaf College is a liberal arts institution that fosters the development of mind, body and spirit. It is a residential college in Northfield, Minn., and affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). The college provides personalized instruction and diverse learning environments, with nearly two-thirds of its students participating in international studies.

Contact David Gonnerman at 507-786-3315 or gonnermd@stolaf.edu.