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St. Olaf announces faculty promotions, tenure

By Alexandra Wertz '12
March 1, 2010

St. Olaf Provost and Dean of the College Jim May recently announced that five St. Olaf faculty members have been promoted to full professor and eight have been granted tenure this year.

The faculty members promoted to full professor are Sylvia Carullo, Jeanine Grenberg, Mary Griep, Kristina MacPherson, and Steve McKelvey.

Joining the ranks of tenured faculty are Christopher Aspaas '95, Douglas Casson, Olaf Hall-Holt, Elizabeth Leer, Justin Merritt, Gary Muir, Diana Neal '83, and Gregory Walter '96 -- all of whom also were promoted to associate professor.

Promoted to professor
A native of Argentina, Carullo has been teaching Spanish at St. Olaf since 1990. She received her Ph.D. from State University of New York at Buffalo. Her area of specialization is colonial Spanish-American literature. Her book, El retrato literario en Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, was published in 1991. In addition to Renaissance art and literature, her scholarly interests include Afro-Hispanic literature, Hispanic American literature, and Latina/o writers. Carullo teaches various levels of Spanish and has also instructed in the Great Conversation Program.

Grenberg, who holds a Ph.D. and M.A. from Emory University and a B.A. from Fordham University, specializes in Kant, ethics, and the history of modern philosophy. Her book Kant and the Ethics of Humility: A Story of Dependence, Corruption, and Virtue was published by Cambridge University Press in 2005. Additionally, she has published in the Journal of the History of Philosophy, the Journal of Value Inquiry, and Kant-Studien. She has received grants from the American Council of Learned Societies, the American Association of University Women, and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation.

Griep joined the St. Olaf faculty in 1988 in the Department of Art and Art History, where she specializes in drawing and painting. She also has taught interdisciplinary courses in women's studies and contemporary art. Griep graduated with honors from Macalester College and earned a master's degree from Hamline University. Her work has been shown nationally in such venues as the Chicago Navy Pier International Art Expositions and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. She was field supervisor for the St. Olaf Term in Asia in 2000 and 2003.

MacPherson, author of an annotated bibliography on women in Japanese society, has worked at St. Olaf as a reference librarian and in the Department of Asian Studies since 1982. She earned her undergraduate degree from Earlham College, where she spent a year studying at Tokyo's Waseda University, and later earned an M.L.S. at the University of Michigan. MacPherson was field supervisor for the St. Olaf Term in Asia program in 2007.

McKelvey joined the Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science Department in 1985. He is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Grinnell College. He completed his Ph.D. at Brown University in operations research, specifically in the field of network equilibria. McKelvey also is involved with the mathematical modeling of biological systems -- primarily population levels of endangered species. McKelvey also has held positions with NASA and the Internal Revenue Service.

For Tenure and Promotion to Associate Professor
Aspaas, who joined the Department of Music in 2005, is conductor of the Chapel Choir and Viking Chorus. He earned his B.M. from St. Olaf and his M.M. in choral conducting from Michigan State University. Aspaas recently completed his Ph.D. in choral music education at Florida State University and remains active as an adjudicator, clinician, and researcher.

Casson teaches ancient and modern political philosophy, religion and politics, and constitutional law in the Political Science Department. He pursued undergraduate studies in classics, history, and politics at Colorado College, and completed his Ph.D. at Duke University. His research revolves around questions of religious and ideological commitment in the public sphere. His book, Liberating Judgment: Fanatics, Skeptics, and John Locke's Politics of Probability, will be published by Princeton University Press in the fall.

Hall-Holt teaches in the Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science. He earned his Ph.D. in computer science at Stanford University, and served as a postdoctoral research associate at SUNY Stony Brook before arriving at St. Olaf in 2004. His research interests include computational geometry, graphics, computer vision, and elements of human cognition. Hall-Holt, who grew up in West Africa, has worked across the United States in the computer science field.

Leer teaches a range of courses including Principles of Education and the off-campus Perspectives on Teaching and Multicultural Education in Hawaii. She earned her master's degree in English literature from Northern Illinois University and completed her Ph.D. in education at the University of Minnesota. Her research focuses on the teaching of multicultural literature and includes her forthcoming book, Multicultural Literature in a Homogeneous Setting: Teacher Beliefs and Practices in One Small-town English Department.

Merritt, who teaches theory and composition, is the youngest winner (in 2001) of the ASCAP Foundation/Rudolph Nissim award for Janus Mask for Orchestra, and the winner of the 2008 Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute Award for River of Blood. Merritt also has worked as composer and musical director in dozens of theater productions that range from Shakespeare to DaDa. Merritt earned his D.M. from Indiana University.

Muir, who earned his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from the University of Otago in New Zealand, currently is director of the Neuroscience Program in the Department of Psychology. His research primarily investigates spatial cogniton and navigation. He received the Minnesota Psychological Association's Walter D. Mink Outstanding Undergraduate Teacher Award in 2008, and the Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience Distinguished Mentor Award last year.

Neal earned her master's degree in nursing from the University of Arizona and her Ph.D. in nursing from the University of Minnesota. She specializes in pediatrics, neonatal intensive care, and psychomotor nursing skills. Her teaching has included both on and off-campus courses in Norway and Tanzania. Neal has published articles on blood pressure measurement and the use of music as a nursing intervention in the Journal of Nursing Education and the Journal of Neonatal Nursing. She also contributed a chapter to the book The High Risk Newborn.

Walter, who teaches and researches in the area of constructive Christian theology, earned his Ph.D. in systematic theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. His areas of interest include general theology, ecumenical theology, contemporary trinitarian theology, and the work of Johann Georg Hamann. He began teaching at St. Olaf in 2005.

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