Dr. Laura Bolf Beliveau

Jeannine Nyangira is the Student Success Advisor for English, English Education, and English/Creative Writing majors.

Jeannine was born in Kenya, raised in Lincoln, Nebraska, and lived for fourteen years in Wheaton, Illinois (a suburb of Chicago).

After attending Wheaton College (B.A., Christian Education) and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (M.A., English), she taught Composition and Business Writing at Doane College in rural Nebraska and Composition at Kennedy-King College in urban Chicago.  Most recently, she worked for five years in Admissions at Wheaton College. 

Having moved to Oklahoma in 2010, she’s been pleasantly shocked by how friendly Oklahomans are and enjoys living here—although when football Saturdays roll around, you can find her screaming for her Nebraska Huskers!

Jeannine loves the liberal arts and what they can do for a soul by opening one up to the world.  She’s also passionate about connecting people with the information they need.  As a Student Success Advisor, she’s excited to connect students with resources/ideas/opportunities that will enhance their college experiences.

Dr. Susan Spencer

Dr. Susan Spencer is Professor of English and Director of Global Initiatives for the College of Liberal Arts.

Sherry Vowel

Words are marvelous things. They have the ability to mend or rend, to tether but not enslave the abstract, and to give wings to that which is normally earthbound. Words heal and hurt, define and distort. Humans have the ability to impose a modicum of order on chaos merely by mastering words. That said, after studying foreign languages--German, French, and Latin--for a little over two years, Sherry Vowel decided to focus on English for a time and received her Bachelor of Arts in English and her Master of Arts in English--Traditional Studies (which meant lots of reading and thinking and writing about the reading and thinking) from the University of Central Oklahoma.

She wrote an undergraduate honor's thesis on gothic conventions and their propensity to create order out of chaos--a recurring theme in literature and in life. Her master's thesis also dealt with the gothic genre and the influence of American Puritanism on the American branch of the gothic genre.

Like many of her peers, she was fortunate enough to receive awards for academic achievement throughout her entire school career. However, she is most proud to have received the Martin Ausmus Scholarship Award in 1993, which was set up to honor the memory of an excellent teacher whom she was most fortunate to have as an instructor.

Sherry Vowel now teaches English 1113, 1213, and 1153 at the University of Central Oklahoma and teaches ESL at an Edmond language school. Her greatest asset in teaching is her ability to see her students as individuals instead of just a class.

Her goal as a teacher is not only to teach her students the importance of words but also to learn something from her students each semester. Her goal as a human being is to do more good than harm. Words continue to fascinate her, which means she does a lot of reading and thinking. She also continues to pursue her love of languages, which for now means she is enjoying the complexity and beauty of Japanese and Portuguese. Tudo bem.

Jeri Van Cook

a.k.a. Don Pendleton

Jeri Van Cook, who writes under the name "Jerry VanCook" and "Don Pendleton" has published 47 action-adventure novels, two non-fiction books (GOING UNDERCOVER---based on his years as a police undercover officer, and REAL-WORLD SELF-DEFENSE---upon which he drew from his real-life experiences in self-defense as well as his 7th Degree Black Belt in Aikijutsu and training in other fighting arts) and dozens of magazine articles in such publications as CLOSE QUARTERS COMBAT, TACTICAL KNIVES, BLADE, TRAIL'S END, GUNS FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT, and SOLDIER OF FORTUNE. He is currently at work on a more mainstream thriller and continues to teach close quarters combat to police and military groups in both North and South America.

Tony Telemeco

The grandson of an Italian immigrant/coal miner and a Maryland tobacco farmer, Tony's journey to UCO is not unlike the ordeal of a knight errant, having faced numerous ordeals and unforeseen twists and turns in his never-ending quest. During his time at Friendly Senior High School in Fort Washington, Maryland, graduating in 1973, and at The King's College in Briarcliff Manor, New York, Tony followed the path of a musician. Being both a serious vocalist (baritone) and promising instrumentalist (clarinet, saxophone, and flute), Tony saw a future of concert halls and smoke-filled, back-alley bars. Economics and an apparent unsuitability for academia (loved learning, hated school), however, caused a change in direction. Tony entered the Air Force, planning to return to his studies and music at the end of his initial enlistment. Fate had other ideas, and Tony spent the next twenty years roaming the globe as an Electronic Intelligence analyst. During his wanderings, Tony sojourned within the Berlin Wall (before it was torn down), dwelled on the North Sea coast of Scotland, in the shadow of the Highlands, and explored the demilitarized zone and offshore islands of the Korean peninsula. His eventual calling first whispered during this period for Tony began designing, writing, and teaching advanced technical courses, first as an instructor and as the Chief of Curriculum Development for the Air Force activity at the Army Intelligence School at Fort Devens, Massachusetts and later as the Electronic Intelligence Operations Manager for the Special United States Liaison Advisor, Korea.

Tony eventually found himself in Oklahoma at Tinker Air Force Base (a place he absolutely never imagined or looked for) where he retired from the military in 1994 and where his meanderings took a very different direction. He spent several years lost in the digital wilderness, first as a computer salesman and later as a hardware/software technician. Once he realized this was not the yellow wood he sought, Tony emerged from the wasteland and returned to the path he had abandoned twenty-five years earlier, earning his A.A. in Liberal Studies from Rose State College in 1998 and his B.A. in English, with a minor in Psychology, from UCO in 1999. After ultimately finding this path to be amazingly quite suitable, Tony continued his exploration, earning his M.A. in English (Traditional Studies) from UCO in July 2002.

During his travels, Tony has received numerous honors and awards. While in the military, he was awarded both the Air Force Meritorious Service Medal and the Department of Defense Meritorious Service Medal along with several Air Force Commendation Medals. Tony was also formally recognized by the Ministry of National Defense, Republic of Korea for his efforts and dedication while in Korea. Tony's academic laurels include being selected as the Outstanding Undergraduate Student for the UCO English Department in 1999. He is also the recipient of the Lorraine K. Bell Scholarship and was named the 2002 Grady Watkins Scholar by the UCO English Department.

Just as in any good questing tale, Tony has not journeyed alone. Debbie, a native of Gulfport, Mississippi and currently the Head Teacher at City-County Headstart, has been Tony's hale and hardy companion since 1975, having shared and, at times, endured his many trials and tribulations. Tony and Debbie have two children: Rory Sean, who is also a UCO alumnus and is currently pursuing a doctorate in Biology at Iowa State University, and Maria Celeste, who is a student at Harrah High School and has wide ranging interests, currently enjoying the discovery of possible paths to the future.

Tony's love of music and the arts has never faded. Although rarely performing in public, he loves singing and now focuses his instrumental talents on the guitar (it's awfully hard playing a woodwind and singing at the same time unless you're Ian Anderson). He gets great pleasure from a broad range of music, and although he loves studying and performing protest music (topical music) from the twentieth century along with American and Celtic folk music, his current passion is the blues. Tony also has a very large collection of recorded music, including nearly four hundred LPs. Besides his musical interests, Tony enjoys writing poetry along various critical and analytical pieces and is a true student of the past, relishing his studies in the Old English and Middle English periods along with the English Renaissance. He dreams of eventually publishing at least one poetry collection that, in some future century, lit students will attempt to interpret, attempts that will lead to many a heated argument! For recreational reading, the classics (Homer, Dante, and the like) tend to attract Tony's attention. He also loves the cinema, especially classic and modern film noir and films focusing on a quest. Filmed enactments of Shakespeare are particular favorites of his as are modern British dramas and comedies.

Tony's true professional joy is found in the classroom. While still a graduate student, he began his current career, starting off as a Teaching Assistant within the UCO English Department. In the fall of 2002, Tony became an adjunct professor at UCO, teaching composition courses, and at Rose State College, teaching a variety of composition, literature, and humanities courses. He began working within the Compass Community program in 2008, finding it both challenging and very rewarding. Tony became a Full-Time Lecturer at UCO in January 2010. He hopes to eventually pursue a Ph.D., possibly in medieval literature or similar field of study; for now he is taking a break from his formal studies and savoring the moment. Although he knows the quest is never over, he has found his road within his yellow wood, and is devoted to helping his students find theirs.

Benjamin Smith

Benjamin Smith received his bachelor's degree in Film Studies from the University of Oklahoma in 2004, and a master's degree in English, focusing on Film Studies from the University of Central Oklahoma in 2009. His thesis, focusing on the theoretical adaptation processes for comic book cinema, was published in an abridged form in the anthology Adapting America/America Adapted. His academic interests and writings include adaptation theory, comics and culture, and the cultural history of cinema and literature. Ben has presented at the Southwest/Texas Popular and American Culture conference, the Oklahoma Film and Video Studies Society Conference, and the UCO Liberal Arts Symposium, and he was an Invited Lecturer for the Oklahoma City Metro Library. Benjamin has given talks on the films of Romero, the politics of the film 300, and, of course, methods of adapting comics to film. In addition to his academic work, he is an avid guitarist, painter, and short story writer.

Heidi Silcox

Heidi Silcox graduated from The Ohio State University in 1998 with a B.A. in English. Immediately thereafter, she attended The University of Akron School of Law and obtained her Juris Doctorate in 2001.

For the past five years, Heidi has practiced law in Georgia, working as an Assistant Solicitor-General in the suburbs of Atlanta.

She moved to Oklahoma with her husband in 2006 and is now a proud graduate student and adjunct faculty member with the UCO English Department.

In her spare time, Heidi enjoys playing with her two ferocious chihuahuas. She is also in the process of writing a young adult novel.

Dagmar Rossberg

Dagmar Rossberg has two Masters Degrees: one in leadership management from Oklahoma City University, another in English/Technical Communication from Oklahoma State University. She is currently teaching English 1213 Composition and Research. Mrs. Rossberg was born and raised in Germany. She attended college in England and traveled extensively prior to making the United States her home.

Presently, she is writing her biography and is working on her first novel and several short stories. She loves cats, is very interested in psychology, nutrition and exercise. And, yes, she is always on the prowl to find yet another good murder mystery with which to burn the midnight oil.

Cynthia Prince

Cynthia Hampton Prince, adjunct instructor,completed her graduate work in English at the University of Central Oklahoma. In addition to her duties at UCO, Ms. Prince enjoys teaching sophomore English and upper level psychology to high school students.

While studying for her master's degree, she developed a love for British literature and Shakespeare. One of her favourite quotes is "Some there be that shadows kiss, such have but a shadow's bliss," taken from the Bard's play Merchant of Venice. Teaching for the past ten years has been the joy of her life as she strives to make a difference in the lives of her students, both academically and personally.

Laurie Polhemus

Laurie Polhemus, Lecturer, graduated from the University of Central Oklahoma with a Master of Arts in English in 1997. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English with a minor in Criminal Justice, also earned at UCO. Since 1996, Laurie has taught college courses, specializing in the teaching of writing, critical thinking, and research skills to first-year college students.

Helen Peters

Helen is a transplant from Wisconsin who has always complained about the hot Oklahoma summers. She became affiliated with UCO in 1965 where she completed a BA in English Education, a MA in English, and worked toward a ME in Education Administration.

She taught English and chaired the English department at Millwood High School in Oklahoma City from 1972 to 1977, and then transferred to Edmond Memorial High School where she taught English for 20 years. She has traveled in England and Western Europe and was fortunate to participate in educational programs which helped to broaden her capabilities as an educator. Her life-long love of literature and writing is reflected in her enthusiasm in the classroom. In 1998, when she had the opportunity to return to UCO as an English instructor, she saw it as a way of not only continuing her career as an educator but also as means of being a positive influence at the university which has been so important to her.

Helen is a lover of the fine arts, especially music and theatrical productions. She has always been an avid reader; however, she confesses that her favorite escape literature is spy and detective fiction. Someday she hopes to accomplish her dream of having her short stories published and finally completing her novel.

Betteanne Palmer

Betteanne Palmer is a graduate of the University of Kansas, where she received a Bachelor of Arts with a major in Creative Writing. She also studied the teaching of writing at the University of Colorado at Denver, where she earned her teaching license in secondary English.

Betteanne earned her Master of Arts in the Creative Studies program at the University of Central Oklahoma in 2007.

Janeen Myers

A native Oklahoman, Janeen Myers earned her Bachelor's degree in English from Oklahoma State University. She took a long hiatus from education to raise a family and to take an active part in her family's business. She began teaching English as a graduate TA at the University of Central Oklahoma where she earned her Master of Arts degree in English studies in 1988. From 1988 through 1993, she taught Freshman Composition classes as an adjunct at UCO, Rose State College, and Oklahoma City Community College.

In 1993, Janeen took a position at Oklahoma State University in Oklahoma City as an English Specialist in the newly organized Learning Center. At OSU-OKC she taught Composition courses and helped develop and teach Freshman orientation courses, Student Success Strategies, which introduced students to online learning. She co-chaired the Writing Across the Curriculum program, attending and presenting at several national conferences. In 1996, she was appointed co-chair of the Honors Program and saw the campus wide program grow from participation of only a few students to nearly 100. In the time since 1996, the Honors Program established Honors courses in English and film, scholarship and cash awards for academic research projects, and student participation in Honors conferences locally and across the country.

After ten years of fulltime teaching, Janeen retired from OSU-OKC. In the fall of 2004, she returns to UCO as an adjunct teaching Freshman Composition. She also begins the Master Gardner program this fall, an ambition she has had for many years. Along with gardening, Janeen enjoys writing and movies and grandchildren.

Kay McConathy

Kay McConathy received her B.A. in English/History from Austin College, Sherman, Texas and her Master of Arts in the Teaching of English from Teachers College, Columbia University. After graduating from Northeast High School and then going on to college, she left the area to continue an education in world studies. A diverse career consisted of secondary teaching in Chicago and New York City, as well as overseas teaching for the Department of Defense. A lengthy advertising and media career in San Francisco reinforced her communication skills. She chose to return to Oklahoma City, her heart's home, to take care of her mother fighting cancer. The enlightened return to the classroom has been as an adjunct freshman composition instructor at OCCC, 2005, and her recent appointment at UCO, the alma mater of her illustrious brother, Dale.

Amy Lawrence

Amy Lawrence has taught English composition courses for over five years at the University of Central Oklahoma. Although Ms. Lawrence is originally from Houston, Texas, Oklahoma's sense of community and dynamic weather makes her proud to be an Okie.

Ms. Lawrence has an A.A. in Journalism, a B.A. in English and an M.A. in Composition, the latter two earned at UCO, which also makes her a proud Broncho. In the classroom, she emphasizes critical thinking, reading and writing, which promote both academic and professional development. Students are invited to explore language and communication through various media outlets in order to discover how literacy and discourses shape our culture.

When Ms. Lawrence is not investigating the philosophical "who's/why's" of the universe, she decompresses by chasing tornados, boating/fishing Arcadia, re-reading Harry Potter books, and surfing the Internet. One day soon, she aspires to earn her Ph.D. in Composition, Rhetoric and Literacy at the University of Oklahoma. But in the meantime, you will see her hanging with friends and enjoying life.

Lee Hinds

Lee Hinds earned a bachelor's degree in Business Education from Oklahoma State University in 1986. After leaving OSU and making a whirlwind trip to Niagara Falls, she began teaching at a high school in Michigan. With subsequent moves, she also worked in various business settings for RadioShack Corporation and Electronic Data Systems in Colorado and Texas.

While volunteering in an English teaching program in Edmond, Ms. Hinds worked with non-native English speakers and enjoyed it so much, she decided to study TESL at UCO. She received her master's degree in Teaching English as a Second Language in 2003.

Along with teaching, she enjoys many sports and especially likes watching those in which hers sons participate. She also enjoys traveling, reading and cooking.

Victor Hawk

Victor Hawk was born in Georgia in approximately 35 BTI (Before The Internet). He received his B.S. in Physics in 1982 from Davidson College, where he won the 1982 Vereen Bell Award for creative writing, and where his senior physics project was using a KIM-1 microcomputer (with 8K of memory!) to measure the Mössbauer Effect using an acoustic loudspeaker and two isotopes of cobalt. His early life was devoted to engineering and technology. He worked for AT&T, Lucent Technologies, and Celestica as a manufacturing and systems engineer from 1985 to 2005. During that time he attended Purdue University, where he received an M.S. in Industrial Engineering in 1993.

By 2005, he was ready for something completely different and left engineering to enroll in UCO's Creative Writing program. He received his M.A. in 2008 with his short story thesis, "Valentine, Texas." He began teaching English composition in Fall 2007 as a T.A. and has continued as an adjunct instructor since Fall 2008.

Victor's hobbies over the years have included running, genealogy, astronomy, autocross, in addition to writing poetry and fiction. His novel in progress, Stumblingbear, continues to expand in its search for an ending. His poems have appeared in New Plains Review, Wind, Cold Mountain Review, and Davidson Miscellany.

Morris Hart

A writer and partner in an international distance education consulting firm, Morris has worked for over ten years in a foreign environment: in the Far East (Japan and SE Asia), in the Middle East (Saudi Arabia) and in the Republic of Ireland. His background includes successful efforts in the US Navy and in the fields of business and education both in the US and abroad.

In Jeddah, Saudi Arabia he developed and operated an American-style secondary school designed to prepare non-English speaking students to function capably in major US universities. Morris possesses a Master of Arts Degree from the University of Central Oklahoma in English (Creative Studies).

Dr. Thomas Graves

Dr. Thomas E. Graves is an adjunct instructor in the English department and received his Ph.D. in linguistics from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 2007. He has conducted descriptive linguistic research on the Sherpa language since 2002. He wrote on the use of noun classifiers in Chinese discourse for his M.A. He has taught numerous linguistics, English, medical terminology, and humanities courses at the University of Central Oklahoma, Oklahoma City Community College, Rose State College, and SUNY

Dr. Graves has been interested in human language and the cultures of the world since he was in junior high school, where he took both French and Spanish classes. He bought his first two language-learning books, Teach Yourself Swahili and Teach Yourself Icelandic, when he was in the eleventh grade. As an undergraduate in college, he was delighted to meet people from assorted cultures around the world. He has had friends, roommates, and acquaintances from a variety of countries including China, Ghana, Iran, Japan, Korea, Nicaragua, and Samoa. His interactions with international students have also generated an interest in language acquisition, especially since he would often help his friends learn to speak English better. They, in turn, would often help him to learn some of their native languages and tell him about their cultures. He has continued to retain his passion for exploring languages, cultures, and history, as well as his interest in teaching such subjects effectively.

Academically, Dr. Graves is interested in human language, history, culture, and the pedagogical aspects of language acquisition. He has focused his research interests in various areas. One is exploring effective methods of learning and teaching language. Other domains include the most efficient way to describe the grammatical structures and their functions in a given language, as well as the use of language in discourse and social encounters.

Dr. Graves is currently working on several projects. He is writing a textbook on spelling and word formation. He is also writing an introductory textbook on the languages of world, since he has discovered that there is no level-appropriate book on this subject. This textbook introduces the student to basic grammatical concepts that are necessary for understanding the mechanisms of human language. The textbook then expands on the genetic and areal relationships among languages, investigates their morphological and syntactic traits, and also elaborates on the languages in their historical and cultural contexts.

Dr. Graves is able to play a decent game of chess and a passable game of go, and he spends much of his time listening to language CDs and reading grammars on a variety of languages.

Kent Gordon

Educated at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri for all four years of undergraduate work, Kent Gordon graduated in 1983 with a B. A. in English Literature. After living in upstate New York for a couple of years, he returned to Oklahoma and began his graduate work at UCO in 1986.

From 1987 to 1996 he began working at Bollinger Books in Oklahoma City, finished his Master’s degree in English Traditional Studies, and began graduate work in the field of Creative Writing. Upon completion of his M. A., Kent Gordon began to teach at UCO in 1991, taught for three years, and then left to become general manager of Bollingers.

When Bollingers closed its doors in 1996, Kent Gordon became Community Relations Manager at Barnes & Noble Bookstore, a position he held until August, 2000.

John Goodine

John Goodine received his bachelor's degree from St. Gregory's University, where he also worked as a reporter and photographer for their public relations department. He received his master's degree in English, Creative Writing, from UCO, where he worked as a writing tutor. John has taught college and high school English and ESL.

David Ferrari

David Ferrari received his B.A. in English, and attended at Drew University, Madison, New Jersey, in 1979, graduating Magna Cum Laude. He completed one year of graduate study in English at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, Ma. in 1985. Then, in 1993, he earned his M.A. in English at the University of Central Oklahoma; while there, he also completed most of the course work for a Master of Education degree, although he stopped before completing the degree. At UCO, Mr. Ferrari concentrated in rhetoric and composition in his M.A. program.

Mr. Ferrari began teaching composition courses at UCO in the fall of 1993, and the next year began teaching similar courses at Rose State College in Midwest City, Oklahoma. In 1997 at UCO, Mr. Ferrari started teaching composition courses for international students, and he has continued to specialize in international composition courses ever since. In 1999, Mr. Ferrari joined OKTESOL, a professional organization for teachers of English as a second language.

In addition to his teaching experience, Mr. Ferrari has spent nearly twenty years in the field of psychology/human services, having worked in psychiatric hospitals, an alcohol and drug rehabilitation center, a shelter for homeless people, etc.

Sky Elliott

Sky received her Master of Arts from the University of Central Oklahoma and her Bachelor of Arts and from Southern Nazarene University. She is currently teaching at UCO and Edmond Language Institute. Prior to working with international students, Sky taught deaf students at the North Carolina School for the Deaf and Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind.

Kris Chavis

Kris Chavis received her BA in English, with a minor in Music Theatre at the University of Central Oklahoma in 1996. After writing her masters thesis on Louisa May Alcott, she received her MA in the Spring of 1999 from UCO.

Ms. Chavis has taught English Composition at UCO for three and a half years. She spent three years as a Teaching Assistant, and was involved in many academic clubs such as the English Graduate Organization and the English Society. Kris is also a member of Sigma Tau Delta, the International English Honor Society.

In 1996, Kris was accepted into the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City, and hopes to pursue her love of the theatre in future years. She would also like to pursue her Ph.D. degree in American or World Literature.

Timothy Bradford

Timothy Bradford was born and raised in Oklahoma City. He received his B.A. in Human Biology from Stanford University in 1993. In 1996, after living in South Asia and Eastern Europe, he returned to Oklahoma, and in 2000 he received his M.A. in English-Creative Writing from UCO. During his Master's studies, in coordination with the Department of Modern Languages and with the help of a Graduate Student Research Grant from the Office of Sponsored Research and Grants, he created Speaking in Tongues, a multilingual poetry festival.

In 2005, he received his Ph.D. in English with an emphasis in Poetics and Modern Literature from Oklahoma State University, where he taught composition and creative writing and served as associate editor of the Cimarron Review. In 2005, he also received the Koret Foundation's Young Writer on Jewish Themes Award for his novel-in-progress, based on the history of the Vélodrome d'Hiver in France, and was a guest lecturer and visiting writer at Stanford University. In 2007-2008, he worked as a freelance writer for the Oklahoma Gazette, and from 2007 to 2009, he was an Associate Foreign Researcher with the Institut d'Histoire du Temps Présent in Paris. During his second year in Paris, he also taught English as a Foreign Language with Lingua Institut, a private language teaching company.

His poetry has most recently appeared in ecopoetics, Drunken Boat, Upstairs at Duroc, and 42Opus, and it has garnered Academy of American Poets prizes, Pushcart Prize nominations, and a 2007 Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize. His freelance writing has appeared in the Oklahoma Gazette, NONzine, Cyclingnews and Sawasdee, and he wrote the text and captions for Sadhus, a photography book on the ascetics of South Asia published by Cuerpos Pintados.

He is pleased to return to Oklahoma, the English Department at UCO, and the classroom in particular. This fall, in addition to teaching, he hopes to finish his novel and find a publisher for his poetry manuscript.

He lives near Jones, Oklahoma, with his wife, two sons, and an ever-changing menagerie.

Tony Telemeco

The grandson of an Italian immigrant/coal miner and a Maryland tobacco farmer, Tony's journey to UCO is not unlike the ordeal of a knight errant, having faced numerous ordeals and unforeseen twists and turns in his never-ending quest. During his time at Friendly Senior High School in Fort Washington, Maryland, graduating in 1973, and at The King's College in Briarcliff Manor, New York, Tony followed the path of a musician. Being both a serious vocalist (baritone) and promising instrumentalist (clarinet, saxophone, and flute), Tony saw a future of concert halls and smoke-filled, back-alley bars. Economics and an apparent unsuitability for academia (loved learning, hated school), however, caused a change in direction. Tony entered the Air Force, planning to return to his studies and music at the end of his initial enlistment. Fate had other ideas, and Tony spent the next twenty years roaming the globe as an Electronic Intelligence analyst. During his wanderings, Tony sojourned within the Berlin Wall (before it was torn down), dwelled on the North Sea coast of Scotland, in the shadow of the Highlands, and explored the demilitarized zone and offshore islands of the Korean peninsula. His eventual calling first whispered during this period for Tony began designing, writing, and teaching advanced technical courses, first as an instructor and as the Chief of Curriculum Development for the Air Force activity at the Army Intelligence School at Fort Devens, Massachusetts and later as the Electronic Intelligence Operations Manager for the Special United States Liaison Advisor, Korea.

Tony eventually found himself in Oklahoma at Tinker Air Force Base (a place he absolutely never imagined or looked for) where he retired from the military in 1994 and where his meanderings took a very different direction. He spent several years lost in the digital wilderness, first as a computer salesman and later as a hardware/software technician. Once he realized this was not the yellow wood he sought, Tony emerged from the wasteland and returned to the path he had abandoned twenty-five years earlier, earning his A.A. in Liberal Studies from Rose State College in 1998 and his B.A. in English, with a minor in Psychology, from UCO in 1999. After ultimately finding this path to be amazingly quite suitable, Tony continued his exploration, earning his M.A. in English (Traditional Studies) from UCO in July 2002.

During his travels, Tony has received numerous honors and awards. While in the military, he was awarded both the Air Force Meritorious Service Medal and the Department of Defense Meritorious Service Medal along with several Air Force Commendation Medals. Tony was also formally recognized by the Ministry of National Defense, Republic of Korea for his efforts and dedication while in Korea. Tony's academic laurels include being selected as the Outstanding Undergraduate Student for the UCO English Department in 1999. He is also the recipient of the Lorraine K. Bell Scholarship and was named the 2002 Grady Watkins Scholar by the UCO English Department.

Just as in any good questing tale, Tony has not journeyed alone. Debbie, a native of Gulfport, Mississippi and currently the Head Teacher at City-County Headstart, has been Tony's hale and hardy companion since 1975, having shared and, at times, endured his many trials and tribulations. Tony and Debbie have two children: Rory Sean, who is also a UCO alumnus and is currently pursuing a doctorate in Biology at Iowa State University, and Maria Celeste, who is a student at Harrah High School and has wide ranging interests, currently enjoying the discovery of possible paths to the future.

Tony's love of music and the arts has never faded. Although rarely performing in public, he loves singing and now focuses his instrumental talents on the guitar (it's awfully hard playing a woodwind and singing at the same time unless you're Ian Anderson). He gets great pleasure from a broad range of music, and although he loves studying and performing protest music (topical music) from the twentieth century along with American and Celtic folk music, his current passion is the blues. Tony also has a very large collection of recorded music, including nearly four hundred LPs. Besides his musical interests, Tony enjoys writing poetry along various critical and analytical pieces and is a true student of the past, relishing his studies in the Old English and Middle English periods along with the English Renaissance. He dreams of eventually publishing at least one poetry collection that, in some future century, lit students will attempt to interpret, attempts that will lead to many a heated argument! For recreational reading, the classics (Homer, Dante, and the like) tend to attract Tony's attention. He also loves the cinema, especially classic and modern film noir and films focusing on a quest. Filmed enactments of Shakespeare are particular favorites of his as are modern British dramas and comedies.

Shay Rahm-Barnett

After completing her master's degree in 2001, Ms. Rahm-Barnett continued to teach at the University of Central Oklahoma as an adjunct instructor. As an adjunct for UCO, OSU-OKC, Rose State College, Oklahoma City Community College, and Mid Michigan College, Ms. Rahm-Barnett taught a variety of courses including Expository Writing and Research, Classical Mythology, World Mythology, Classical Humanities, Beliefs and Believers, College Writing, and various English Composition courses. In May 2006, Ms. Rahm-Barnett was named the College of Liberal Arts' Outstanding Adjunct Faculty Member for 2005-2006.

Prior to accepting her current appointment as Executive Editor of New Plains Review and Lecturer in the English Department, Ms. Rahm-Barnett was the senior Instructional Designer with the Center for Professional and Distance Education at UCO for one and a half years. In the fall of 2008, Ms. Rahm-Barnett also served as a mentor for the Leadership Central Mentor Program.

Ms. Rahm-Barnett has written papers for and delivered presentations at various local and national conferences including E-Learn World, Oklahoma Regional WebCT Conference, Student Association of Graduate English Studies Conference, and the Conference of Two-Year College English Association-SW Region. She has published work in Online Classroom. Additionally, Ms. Rahm-Barnett is the author of two chapters in and the co-editor of College Talk: Conversations for Central Success (Kendall Hunt Publishing).

Ms. Rahm-Barnett lives in Edmond with her husband, Shawn, their three children, Bodhi, Piper, and Ellie, and their three dogs, Big Jet, Princess Daisy, and Baby Tank.

Jeannine Bettis

Educated at Oklahoma State University for two years and at the University of Central Oklahoma for the remainder of her undergraduate work, Jeannine Bettis received the Grady Watkins English award prior to her graduation with a B.A. from UCO. She went on to do her master's work at UCO, graduating in 1983 summa cum laude.

From 1985 to 1989, she taught English as a second language at the English Language Center in Edmond, Oklahoma. There, students from Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and South America were instructed in all aspects of the language: grammar, vocabulary, reading, listening, and pronunciation. Here, Ms. Bettis benefited from contact with Javad Dadgostari, principal of the school and an expert in ESL; she was able to practice her skills extensively at the school.

Also in 1985, she became a lecturer for the University of Central Oklahoma, a position which has allowed her to use her knowledge of the university and of her subject to help her students. She has taught both native English speakers and students from abroad in this capacity.

In 1989, she started her own business, Bettis Tutorials, which has operated continuously since that time. In this capacity, Ms. Bettis provides language instruction, cultural orientation, and heartfelt friendship to people who have come to the U.S. from various countries. Students' ages have ranged from 5 years old to over 70; their occupations are varied: students, housewives, business managers, and cardiologist researchers have been among clients. Ms. Bettis specializes in work with Japanese people, and has also worked extensively with persons of Hispanic origin.

In 1993, Ms. Bettis took on employment at Rose State College in Midwest City, Oklahoma, and has lectured there part-time since then. The community college has kept her in touch with the needs of the local areas that she serves, giving her insight into this kind of institutional structure and mission.

Ms. Bettis is a working teacher, who has extensive and broad-based experience in private and public instruction of a varied student clientele, and in varied school structures.

She is currently doing research toward a series of essays on the teaching experience, and on Japanese-American communication styles.

Doglas Goetsch

Douglas Goetsch has taught writing to the gifted, the incarcerated, undergraduates, post-graduates, and continuing education students since the 1980s. For fourteen years he was a member of the English faculty at Stuyvesant High School in New York City; then established and directed the creative writing program at Passages Academy, a network of schools that serves court-involved youth in New York City. He's been on staff at the Stonecoast Writing Conference, The Frost Place, The Dodge Poetry Festival, and for nine years at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival.

Doug's books of poetry include Nobody's Hell (Hanging Loose Press, 1999), The Job of Being Everybody (Cleveland State, 2004), winner of the CSU Poetry Center Open Competition, and four prize-winning chapbooks. He is the recipient of awards from Prairie Schooner, MARGIE, Slipstream, The Chautauqua Literary Journal, two fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, many Pushcart Prize nominations, and the Donald Murray Prize for writing on the teaching of writing. His poetry, reviews and essays have appeared in The American Scholar, Poetry, The Iowa Review, Ploughshares, The Threepenny Review, The New England Review, online at PoetryDaily and Garrison Keillor's The Writer's Almanac, on the air at NPR, and in numerous anthologies.

Doug's poems have been cited for their grittiness, craft, and "wicked good humor." Mark Halliday calls them "free of baloney," and Billy Collins wrote, "It's hard to imagine a reader who could resist Goetsch's seductive opening lines." Of his most recent collection, Your Whole Life (Slipstream Press, 2007), Jeffrey Harrison wrote, "Goetsch can't keep himself from going right to [the] edges, whether he is writing about the entanglements of adult life, the cluelessness of childhood, or, as he so deftly does in several poems, both at once."

Doug received a bachelor's from Wesleyan University and a master's in American Civilization from New York University. Since 2002 he has been the editor of Jane Street Press, a not-for-profit press dedicated to publishing undiscovered masters of contemporary American poetry.

Dr. Linda Steele

Dr. Linda Steele has earned the following degrees: B.A. in English Education from the University of Central Oklahoma (1988); M.A. in English from the University of Central Oklahoma (1990); and Ph.D. in English from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette (1996).

Her major emphasis is on American Literature before 1900, and her other areas of specialization include Film Studies and Linguistics.

Dr. Pamela Washington

Dr. Pamela Washington came to UCO from the University of Southwestern Louisiana, Lafayette in 1989. As Director of First-Year Composition, she directed the composition program, trained and supervised the English department's teaching assistants, and helped to oversee the tutoring lab.

As a specialist in Rhetorical History and Composition Theory, Dr. Washington helped to design the department's history of rhetoric courses and the composition strategies and theory courses. Her current areas of interest include gender-based rhetorics and the connections among rhetorical theory, literature and film.  With her rhetorical studies providing a strong background in the classics, Dr. Washington also teaches the department's world literature courses and has worked hard to incorporate non-western literature into the curriculum.

Dr. Washington has recently had a collection of essays, E.D.E.N. Southworth: Recovering the Career of a Nineteenth-Century Popular Novelist, accepted for publication in the fall of 2012 by the University of Tennessee Press.  Having recently returned to the department after serving for eight years as Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, Dr. Washington looks forward to continuing to conduct research on nineteenth-century American women.  In addition, she has published numerous articles on traveling with children in Oklahoma, has served as an editor of Traveling Oklahoma with Children and Traveling Oklahoma as a Couple, and has recently been asked to write for the Travel Promotion Division of the Oklahoma Department of Tourism and Recreation.  

Dr. David Macey

Dave Macey, who was born and raised in Massachusetts, received his bachelor's degree in English from Yale University in 1988. After graduation, he worked as a cook in a soup kitchen in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn and then returned to Boston, where he began training to become a priest.

A year later, having determined that his vocation was of a different sort, Dave left the seminary and went to work for a major Boston bank. He returned to school in the fall of 1992 and earned a master's degree in English at Brown University (1994) before moving to Nashville, where he earned a second master's degree (1995) and a Ph.D. (1998) in English literature at Vanderbilt University.

Dave arrived at UCO in the fall of 1999 and taught courses in the areas of English composition, Old English language and literature, and Restoration and eighteenth-century British literature. He also directed master's theses in creative writing, organized the Student Symposium in 2001, and acted as faculty advisor to the English Society and to GATE: The Gay Alliance for Tolerance and Equality (now SAFE: The Student Alliance for Equality).

In 2001, Dave moved to Tacoma, where he offered courses in the areas of Restoration and eighteenth-century British literature, lesbian and gay literature, popular fiction, and literary and critical theory at the University of Puget Sound (UPS). He also served as associate chairperson of the UPS English department, as chairperson of the university's Committee on Diversity, and as a member of the advisory boards for the interdisciplinary women's studies and honors programs.

Since returning to UCO in 2004, Dave, now a professor of English, has taught courses in the areas of English composition, Old English language and literature, Restoration and eighteenth-century British literature, world literature, the history of the English language, and literary and critical theory. He has served since 2007 as the chairperson of the English department, and he also continues to serve as SAFE's faculty advisor.

Dave is the coeditor, with Hans Ostrom of the University of Puget Sound, of the five-volume Greenwood Encyclopedia of African American Literature, and he has published essays and presented papers at national conferences on eighteenth-century Utopian fiction, the transformation of Classical motifs in Renaissance poetry, and the representation of sexuality and gender in literature and film, among other topics.

A member of the Modern Language Association, the National Council of Teachers of English, and the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, Dave currently serves on the editorial board of Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture and as a director of the Cimarron Alliance and of Interweave Continental. He lives in Oklahoma City, where he is active in numerous BGLT community activities and events.

Dr. Wayne Stein

Wayne Stein, Ph.D.,  a  professor,  is the assistant chair of the department.

A chapter called "Enter the Dracula: Asian Cinematic Vampires"  will be included in Draculas, Vampires, and Other Undead Forms by Scarecrow Press soon. Five entries in Greenwood Asian American Encyclopedia has just been released. A new edition of Languaging Force X (LFX) -- the role playing game that promotes literacy, critical thinking skills and fun -- has been published.  Stratagems, a new edition,  was just published by Fountainhead Press.  Fresh Takes, a composition reader,  was  also published by McGraw Hill. A chapter on anime vampires found in Vampire Hunter D, "The Western Eastern: De Coding Hybridity and CyberZen Goth(ic)" in Asian Gothic, is now out. 

Developing a Service Learning Composition Class,  online composition classes, and other online classes (Kung Fu Films,  History of Rhetoric 2, and Cyberpunk Films and Literature), he tries to create classes that make a difference.

He was awarded the 2008 DaVinci Fellow from the "Oklahoma's Creativity Think Tank."  He taught EFL (English as a Foreign Language) in Seoul, Korea, the place of his birth. He was the past president and past webmaster of OKTESOL. He has chaired and helped to chair  five conferences: three OKTESOL Conferences, and a couple of Oklahoma Buddhist Conferences. 

He was awarded the ESL Professional of the Year Award from OKTESOL (2003),  the Service to the Sanga (Community) Award from the Stillwater OSU  Buddhist Society (2003), Faculty Merit for Service (2004), and LA Creative Award (2004).

Dr. Stein has presented papers at international, national, and local conferences. He  teaches Asian American literature, modern world literature, and cyberpunk fiction and is interested in the magical realism of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the paranoia of Thomas Pynchon, and the postmodernity of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha.  He  visited Vietnam (2002) as he prepared to teach his Vietnam War literature course.

He grew up visiting Chinatown in Los Angeles, watching Kung Fu films, and practicing martial arts, which were his ways of trying to act Asian. Thus, he brings much enthusiasm to his Kung Fu film class. Since Kung Fu films were influenced by the samurai films of Kurosawa,  he also teaches a Kurosawa film class. Practicing the way of the sword (kendo),  he is one of the sponsors of the Budo Society, the way of the warrior,  and tells everyone to watch Red Beard, Toshio Mifune's last film with Kurosawa.  He has also taught a course on  graphic novels and on Anime (Japanese animation) and  Manga (comics).

Believing in excellence,  he has completed training under the Oklahoma Quality Awards Foundation.  Promoting the benefits of technology, Dr. Stein has been the Liberal Arts Web-maintainer/master, the English Department  webmaster, and the technical advisor of the UCO OWL, Online Writing Lab. He has been English Department Manager of Turnitin.com, fall 2003- spring 2005.  He has promoted the idea of Lectureships for Composition Instructors.

Dr. Gladys Lewis

Gladys S. Lewis, a full Professor, received her BA in Psychology from Texas Christian University (1956), her MA in English and Creative Writing (summa cum laude) from Central State University (1985), and her Ph.D. in Early American and British Literature to 1910 from Oklahoma State University (1992).

Recipient of many honors, she was granted the Excellence in Teaching Award for UCO in 1996-97, and is listed in Who's Who and a number of Who's Who specialty publications, as well as being selected Woman of the Year, 1994, by the American Biographical Institute.

She belongs to a long list of professional organizations, some of which include the following: The Hemingway Society, The Harriet Beecher Stowe Society, The John Bunyan Society, The Modern Language Association, and The Society of Biblical Literature. She is the author of Message, Messenger, and Response: Puritan Forms and Cultural Reformation in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. She has published in many literary journals, and presented papers in regional, national and international conferences.

Dr. Lewis teaches undergraduate American literature courses, graduate seminars in 16th- and 19th-century American and British literature. She served from 2000 to 2008 as the Executive Editor of New Plains Review, the literary journal of the liberal arts college.

Dr. Deborah Israel

Deborah Israel received her B.A. in English, with a minor in secondary education, at S.U.N.Y. at Stony Brook in 1970. She received her M.A. in English at the then Central State University in 1975. In 2000, she received her Ph.D. in Literature at Oklahoma State University, with concentrations in Nineteenth Century American Literature and American Modernism. Her doctoral dissertation, The Days of Awe: Three Jewish Women's Autobiographical Entrance into America, combined her interests in autobiographical and ethnic/immigrant studies. 

Before coming to UCO, Dr. Israel taught at Oklahoma City Community College with service as Coordinator of Freshman Composition, Director of the Communications Laboratory, and Technical Writing Specialist. In 1977, she participated in the Oklahoma Writing Project at the University of Oklahoma, which led to teaching seminars at public school in-services across the state of Oklahoma in "Evaluating Student Writing."

Dr. Israel's practical experience includes a position as writer/education specialist at the U.S. Coast Guard Institute with duties in planning, writing, and editing correspondence courses and service wide examinations as well as teaching seminars in grammar, writing, and course development.

Dr. Israel has been at the University of Central Oklahoma since 1988 where she has taught a variety of courses in composition and American and British literature. Recent upper-division classes include 19th Century British Women Writers, American Autobiography, and Early American Ghost Stories. She is also a co-editor of the Red Dirt Reader and Speak Your Mind, the UCO freshman composition textbooks.

Rilla Askew

Rilla Askew is the author of three novels and a collection of stories. Her short fiction has appeared in a variety of literary magazines and has been selected for Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards. Her first novel The Mercy Seat was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and received the Western Heritage Award and the Oklahoma Book Award in 1998. Her novel about the Tulsa Race Riot, Fire in Beulah, received the American Book Award, the Myers Book Award, and was Oklahoma's One Book One State selection for 2007. Her most recent novel Harpsong was nominated for the Dublin IMPAC Prize and received the Oklahoma Book Award, the Western Heritage Award, the Willa Cather Award from Women Writing the West, and the Violet Crown Award from the Writers League of Texas.

The recipient of a 2009 Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Askew received her M.F.A. in Fiction from Brooklyn College. She has taught in the M.F.A. Creative Writing Programs at Brooklyn College, Syracuse University, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is married to actor Paul Austin, and they divide their time between New York and Oklahoma.

Dr. Constance Squires

Constance Squires earned her Ph.D. from Oklahoma State University in 2005, where she taught creative writing, literature, and composition. She also served as editor of the international literary magazine the Cimarron Review from 2003 to 2005 and co-edited the first and second editions of Speculations: An Anthology for Reading, Writing and Research (Kendall Hunt Publishing). Her major areas of study are fiction writing and the modern period, with an emphasis on narrative theory, postcolonialism, and British novels of empire.

ALONG THE WATCHTOWER, her debut novel, will be published next year by by Riverhead Books.Short stories from Dr. Squires's dissertation, American Thighs and Other Stories: A Collection of Short Stories With a Critical Introduction are forthcoming in The Atlantic Monthly and have appeared in The Gingko Tree Review, Bayou, The Briar Cliff Review, The Arkansas Review, Eclectica, and the Chiron Review, and have been nominated for Best New American Voices 2005, the O. Henry Prize Series 2003, and twice for the Pushcart Prize (2003, 2005). Other stories in the collection were awarded the Bob Shacochis Award for the Short Story (2004), The Briar Cliff Review 2004 Fiction Award, Honorable Mention in the Atlantic Monthly 2003 Fiction Contest, third place in the 2005 Atlantic Monthly fiction contest, Honorable Mention from the AWP's Intro Journals Project and named among storySouth's Million Writer's Award Notable Stories of 2005. A novel, Contact High, was a finalist in the James Jones First Novel Fellowship in 2004. Dr. Squire's article, "A Just and Loving Gaze: Iris Murdoch's Theory of the Novel," appears in the Fall 2005 issue (vol 3) of the Philological Review; she won the 2005 Leonard J. Leff Film Studies Award at Oklahoma State University for the essay "Is it Late or Early?: Time and Narrative in Nicholas Roeg's Insignificance."

She is a native Oklahoman and lives in Edmond with her husband, professor and novelist Dr. Steve Garrison. This spring she is teaching an upper level/graduate course in writing the short story and a course in the fundamentals of creative writing at UCO.

Dr. Matt Hollrah

Dr. Matt Hollrah is an Associate Professor of English and the Director of Composition at UCO. He is a native of Stillwater, Oklahoma, where he received his B.A. in English from Oklahoma State University. He holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing (poetry) from Western Michigan University and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Kansas.

Dr. Hollrah has presented papers at various local and national conferences, including NCTE's Conference on College Composition and Communication, the Council of Writing Program Administrators Conference, and the National Association for Humanities Education Conference. He has published academic work in the minnesota review and in READER. His poetry has most recently been published in Ain't Nobody That Can Sing Like Me: New Oklahoma Writing. He was a finalist in 2005 for the Pablo Neruda Prize in Poetry from Nimrod International Journal. He is also a member of the peer review board for InSight: A Journal of Scholarly Teaching.

In Fall 2007, Dr. Hollrah received a grant from UCO's Innovative Technology for Transformational Learning Incentive Program to conduct a pilot research project using Morae usability software to make digital recordings of student writing processes. The study, entitled "Recording Writers in Action: Transforming Student Writing Processes by Transforming Teacher Response," recorded the writing processes of fourteen students from the beginning of ENG 1113 to the end. Dr. Hollrah also recorded his grading and response processes with the overall aim of improving student response to instructor feedback. This research is ongoing.

Dr. Hollrah's academic interests include rhetoric, composition theory and pedagogy, modernist poetry and poetics, and the intersection of epistemology and literary interpretation. He lives with his wife, Julie, and their two children, Sadie and Simon, in Edmond.

Dr. Kevin Hayes

Kevin J. Hayes was born and raised in Toledo, Ohio where took his undergraduate degree at the University of Toledo in 1981. Upon graduation, he became a bike bum, working as a bicycle mechanic half the year and travelling the other half. His travels took him and Old Bessie (his custom-made ten speed) back and forth across North America several times and ultimately to Fiji, New Zealand, and Australia.

He entered the M.A. program at the University of Delaware in 1987 and completed his Ph.D. in 1991. Since then, he has taught at the University of Central Oklahoma where he is currently a professor. His books include Captain John Smith: A Reference Guide (G. K. Hall, 1991); Checklist of Melville Reviews (Northwestern University Press, 1991), with Hershel Parker; Critical Response to Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (Greenwood, 1994); Henry James: The Contemporary Reviews (Cambridge University Press, 1996); A Colonial Woman's Bookshelf (University of Tennessee Press, 1996), and An American Cycling Odyssey, 1887 (University of Nebraska Press, 2002)

Listen here to a podcast featuring an interview with Dr. Hayes about his book, An American Cycling Odyssey, 1887.

Dr. John Springer

Dr. John Springer earned his Ph.D. in English from the University of Iowa in 1994. He was a Visiting Assistant Professor of English and a Visiting Lecturer in the Film and Video Studies Program at the University of Oklahoma before coming to UCO in fall 2000.

Dr. Springer's principal areas of research are film history and theory, 19th and early 20th century American literature, and the broad, interdisciplinary field known as Cultural Studies. He wrote the introduction to Raymond Williams in the well-known anthologyLiterary Criticism and Theory: Greeks to the Present as well as numerous articles and reviews for journals such as Genre, Iris, andLiterature/Film Quarterly.

Most recently, Dr. Springer has published his first book: Hollywood Fictions: The Dream Factory in American Literature (University of Oklahoma Press, 2000). This work integrates Dr. Springer's interests in film and literature by examining a genre of American fiction specifically devoted to exploring the relationship between them. Looking at novels and short stories set in Hollywood from the teens through the 1940s,Hollywood Fictions examines the contradictory ways in which Hollywood was represented and analyzes the conflicting images and ideas it produced in the popular culture of the twenties, thirties, and forties.

Dr. Springer has also presented papers at several national and international conferences. Last October, he was one of the academic presenters at the Alfred Hitchcock Centennial Celebration hosted by New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. In all of his scholarly work Dr. Springer explores the multiple intersections between visual and print cultures, and he is interested in discovering how a broad range of cultural practices (film, literature, visual arts, music) are embedded in specific social and historical contexts.

Dr. Allen Rice

Academic Background:

Allen C. Rice was born at a very early age (in fact, he had just been born at that time). He was born in the exotic and far-away town of Edmond, Oklahoma, above the movie theater on Broadway (later Garfield's Restaurant and now the London House Restaurant) where the dinky second-floor hospital accommodated the spare needs of a small town of 5,000 people.

Allen, springing from hale and hardy working class Okies (one grandfather was a cattle rancher, the other a rough-neck oil field worker), attended Edmond Public Schools all his life until he went to college at U.C.O. (then Central State U.) for his Freshman and Sophomore years.

Then he loaded up the truck and moved to Beverly -- the University of Oklahoma in Norman, that is -- where he got a double degree in English and History and watched some of the glory years of Sooner Football.

He stayed at O.U. for his Master's degree in English, but then moved to Indiana University (in Bloomington, Indiana) where he got his Ph.D. in 1993 (getting a major in English Renaissance Literature and also getting a full Certificate in Medieval Studies) and developed a mild taste for Hoosier basketball, and a comic aversion to Bobby Knight, the Hoosiers' coach.

Allen's dissertation focused upon the ways in which John Milton considered himself a Prophet as he composed his great epic, Paradise Lost. Then Allen tried to make a Profit himself, by entering the job market.

Teaching Background and Interest:

Allen began his teaching career in 1980 as Graduate Assistant at O.U., serving there for two years (and janitoring in the summers). Since then he has been an Adjunct Instructor for one year at Oklahoma State University in Oklahoma City, a Teaching Assistant for four years at Indiana University, a Professional Writer for two years at the Indiana University Foundation, and an Assistant Professor in the English Department for one year at Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee.

He came to U.C.O. in 1991 and has been a permanent fixture here ever since. He is currently a tenured Professor of English. Allen enjoys teaching literature written by extremely old dead white guys. These include Milton, Shakespeare, Chaucer, and other Medieval and Renaissance writers.

He also teaches genre courses on Greco-Roman Epic and on Medieval (that is, King Arthur-type) Romance, because despite middle age and a pot belly, Allen often fantasizes that he is a sword-wielding hero of legend. This is very sad, of course.

Allen sponsors the English Society and Sigma Tau Delta (comprised of lots of fun, hip, cool, groovy students who like reading books and watching movies) and is also the unofficial (meaning uncompensated) Undergraduate Director.

Conferences, Publications, and other interests:

Allen can often be found chairing sessions or presenting papers at conferences, including the SCMLA (South Central Modern Language Association), the SCCCL (South Central Conference on Christianity in Literature), and the SCRC (South Central Renaissance Conference).

He also attends conferences without bizarre acronyms; his favorite was the Fifth International Milton Symposium which was held the Summer of 1995 in Bangor, Wales.

He had a wonderful time there, befriending some of the world's great Miltonists, entering scholarly debates with them, presenting a paper before these great minds, and generally licking their feet like a brown-nosing lap dog.

Allen will publish an "amusing" article on the identity of Milton's muse in a forthcoming issue of Modern Language Review and has published a book review in Milton Quarterly.

He is currently working on several writing projects, including an epic (so far an 18 year disaster written in iambic pentameter and heroic couplets), an adventure\comedy\horror screenplay (about vampires in Norman, Oklahoma), a science  fiction\fantasy\historical novel, and a collection of children's stories. In other words, he can't finish a project once he has begun it.

Allen is a Southern Baptist Deacon(inactive and lazy), and a Sunday School Teacher of a class of 110 married adults; he loves supporting Sooner Football, watching Mystery Science Theater 3000, playing racquetball, and reading bad Science Fiction stories.

Dr. Amy Carrell

Amy Carrell is the current director of Graduate Studies in the English Department. She, a native of Indiana, came to UCO in August 1993 with a Ph.D. from Purdue University. Her doctoral dissertation combines linguistic theory with rhetorical theory and applies them to humor research. The end result is an audience-based theory of verbal humor. Her M.A. is in rhetoric and composition, also from Purdue.

Dr. Carrell is the current (1996-1997) president of the International Society for Humor Studies (ISHS) and chair of the 1997 ISHS conference (July 8-13), the first ISHS conference on North American soil since 1994.

She is also the organizer and director of the International Humor Studies Seminar. The second Seminar will immediately follow the ISHS conference. William F. Fry (Stanford University) and Rod Martin (University of Western Ontario) will serve as the primary faculty for the 1997 Seminar (July 14-25).

In addition, she is on the board of consulting editors of HUMOR: International Journal of Humor Research. She has presented papers at regional, national, and international conferences, has collaborated on a psychological testing instrument (with Willibald Ruch, Gabriele Koehler, and Lambert Deckers), and has published in various journals and volumes.

On campus, Dr. Carrell teaches courses in linguistics, composition, technical writing, advanced grammar, English as a second language, British literature, and humor research. She is also a Fulbright and Rhodes Student Program advisor and a member of the International Studies Program committee.

Dr. Carrell and her husband, Dr. David Carrell, have three daughters, Sophie, Madeline, and Sylvia.

Dr. Candice McKee

Candice McKee, an Oklahoma native, received her bachelor's degree in English from the University of Central Oklahoma in 1995. Prior to graduation, Ms. McKee began her work as a technical writer in the software industry, producing user and technical manuals, proposals, journal articles, advertising pieces, and numerous websites. She has also worked in the medical, criminal justice, and science industries.

She finished a master's degree at UCO with a Traditional Studies emphasis (2000). Her interests include 16th Century Studies, specifically Edmund Spenser, upon whose works she focused her thesis.

Ms. McKee was the Public Relations Chairman of the English Graduate Organization. She also served as the Immediate Past President for the Oklahoma Chapter of the Society for Technical Communications (STC) and as the Education Chairman for the Al-Lu-We chapter of the American Business Women's Association (ABWA). She was selected at the 2002 and 2003 Woman of the Year and was a Top Ten Candidate at the national level of ABWA. Ms. McKee served as the secretary for the Oklahoma State University Student Chapter of STC for two years.

In 2002 she began her PhD studies in Technical Writing and Teaching English as a Second Language. She is currently preparing for comps and has most of her dissertation completed.  Ms. McKee serves on the international level of STC as the Manager of the International Student Technical Communication Competition (ISTCC). She also reviews books for the Journal of Technical Communication. She recently assisted Gerald Alred and others with an update on the most important articles and books in technical communications. Presently she is working on three articles: (1) the usability of Photoshop books, (2) developing a personal development plan, and (3) the importance of including people with disabilities in audience analysis. She is also one of two lead technical writers on a FEMA grant for Fire Safety for Oklahomans with Disabilities.

Her academic honors include being inducted into Sigma Tau Delta English Honor and being listed on the President's Honor Roll. Ms. McKee has received scholarships from the American Business Women's Association, the Society for Technical Communications, and the Lorraine K. Bell Scholarship given by the UCO English Department. She is one of two individuals to receive Chapter Achievement awards (in STC) at both the student and professional level.

Dr. Deborah Brown

Deborah Brown is a professor of English. She joined the University of Central Oklahoma's English Department in August 2000 after teaching five years as an Assistant Professor at Ohio University (Athens, OH). She received her Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma in 1994. Dr. Brown's degree program in Instructional Leadership and Academic Curriculum focused on English Education, and her qualitative dissertation investigated the sociocultural and academic factors that played a part in three females' writing experiences as they made a transition into a university and progressed through their first two years of study.

Dr. Brown's other teaching experiences before joining the faculty at UCO include the following: one year as an Assistant Professor at Pittsburg State University (Pittsburg, KS); four years as an adjunct instructor at Southern Nazarene University (Bethany, OK) while in graduate school; and 11 years as a secondary English and journalism teacher in Oklahoma, Texas, and Florida.

At UCO, Dr. Brown teaches courses in literature and composition. She also supervises residency teachers. Dr. Brown currently serves as a member of the Faculty Senate and as First Vice-President of the Oklahoma Council of Teachers of English.

Dr. Brown's most recent publications include (a) articles on Henry Dumas and Lance Jeffers for An Encyclopedia of African American Literature (edited by Hans Ostrom and J. David Macey) to be published in the Fall of 2005 and (b) articles on Louisa May Alcott, Mary Mapes Dodge, Samuel Woodworth and Clement Clark Moore for the seven-volume Greenwood Encylopedia of American Poetry (edited by Jeffrey H. Gray, James McCorkel and Mary Balkum) to be published in early 2006.

Other publications by Dr. Brown include a chapter entitled "Kaffir Boy: A Rationale" in N. Karolides's Censored Books: Critical Viewpoints, Vol. II (2002) and articles in the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, Ohio Journal of the English Language, Wisconsin English Journal, and FOCUS: Teaching English Language Arts. She co-authored (with a colleague at Eastern Kentucky University) two articles published in an on-line, peer-reviewed journal Karios, and she was the lead editor of the "Annonated Bibliography of Research in the Teaching of English" twice yearly for Research in the Teaching of English for six years, May 1997- May 2003.

National conferences where Dr. Brown has given presentations include the National Council of Teacher of English Annual Conventions, the Conference on College Composition and Communication Annual Conferences, and NCTE Professional Development Conferences. Dr. Brown's regional conference presentations include the South Central Modern Language Association Conference (2004), the Southwest International Reading Association Conference (2003, 2002), the Mid-West Modern Language Conference (2001, 2000), and the Rocky Mountain Educational Research Associational Research Association Fall Conference. State conference presentations include the Ohio Council of Teachers of English Fall and Spring Conventions and the Missouri State Council of the Reading Association's Fall Conference.

Dr. Sandra Mayfield

Dr.Sandra Mayfield joined the faculty of the University of Central Oklahoma in the fall of 1985. Before that, she had taught at East Texas Baptist University and Oklahoma Baptist University, and she had worked as a consultant for five years at the Oklahoma State Department of Education.

Dr. Mayfield is a magna cum laude graduate of Oklahoma Baptist University; she completed the master's degree and Ph.D. degree in English literature at the University of Oklahoma. For her doctoral degree, she concentrated on Renaissance and seventeenth-century British literature

At OBU, she was named Outstanding Senior Woman, and shortly after her graduation from there, she was named to the national publication Outstanding Young Woman of America. At OU, she was a teaching assistant while completing work for the doctorate. Among courses taught there was an honors course for freshmen in history and literature.

At UCO, Dr. Mayfield has served as Chairperson of the English Department (1991-95), secretary of the Faculty Senate, representative to both the Academic Affairs Council and the Graduate Council, committee member on the University Committee on Assessment and the University Handbook Committee. She currently serves on a committee for the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education on curriculum and transfer credit.

Dr. Mayfield has developed courses for the UCO English Department in Women in Literature, Southern Women Writers, Seventeenth-Century Prose and Poetry, Shakespeare's Comedies, and the Bible as Literature.

She has published articles in her area of specialty, and she has presented numerous papers at such academic conferences as the South Central Renaissance Conference, Central Renaissance Conference, South Central Modern Language Association, an International Conference on Narrative, an International Conference on Representations of Love and Hate, and state and local conferences. She has served as President of the Oklahoma Council of Teachers of English.

Active in civic and community organizations, Dr. Mayfield is the UCO liaison to the local chapter of the American Association of University Women; she is a member of Delta Kappa Gamma and the Cambridge Club of Edmond. She is a member of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Oklahoma City, where she is a participant in the Evensong Handbell Choir.

Dr. Timothy Petete

Timothy Petete (Seminole) teaches literature and composition. His literature courses examine realities and literary traditions, while his composition courses deal with language, technology, and popular culture.  He obtained a B.A. (Native American Studies) at the University of Oklahoma, an M.A. (American Indian Studies) at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a Ph.D. (English) at the University of Oklahoma.

James Daro, MFA

James Daro is a lecturer in Playwriting, Screenwriting, and Fundamentals of Creative Writing. James studied theatre at Northeastern Oklahoma State University (BA, 1986), political science at California State University San Bernardino (MA, 1989), Russian at Monterey California's Defense Language Institute (too much time in the military), creative writing at UCO (MA, 2002), and drama at the University of Oklahoma (MA, 2007). He holds a Master of Fine Arts in Interdisciplinary Art (2010) from Vermont's Goddard College. He taught Freshman Composition in the UCO English Department from 2002-2009.

An award-winning dramaturg, James has been twice honored by the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, and has served as the KCACTF Region VI Initiatives Coordinator. He was the 2009 workshop leader for the National Critics Institute at Texas State University. James has worked as an actor, director, and dramaturg in with the UCO theatre department, the University of Oklahoma School of Drama, Oklahoma Shakespeare in the Park, and a number of other companies in Oklahoma.

James's essay, "Behind The Queens' Veils: Power Versus Powerlessness in C.S. Lewis's Till We Have Faces and Palahniuk's Invisible Monsters" appears in the 2009 anthology Sacred and Immoral: On the Writings of Chuck Palahniuk, the first truly academic, peer-reviewed book available about the Fight Club author's work.

James loves George Orwell, Samuel Beckett, Gregory Corso, Stanley Kubrick, Marjane Satrapi, Jack Kirby, Albrect Durer, Alex Jones' Infowars.com, ABC-TV's Lost, G.I. Joe, Mego and Big Jim action figures from the 1970s, and mowing grass. He likes Brett Easton Ellis, stage musicals, Michael Mann, myspace, American Idol, and high gas prices far less.

Dr. Stephen Garrison

Dr.Stephen M. Garrison graduated from the University of South Carolina Ph.D. in 1982, and from Baylor University, M. A. 1977.  He has taught at the University of Central Oklahoma since the fall of 1981 and was the chair of the English department for eight years and is a full professor.

He was director of the Basic Writing Program at UCO, supervisor of Master's Emphasis in Composition, and director of the Graduate Program in English.

Some of Dr. Garrison's academic honors include: Outstanding Young Man of America (1982), Fulbright Senior Lectureship at Jageillonian, Krakow, Poland (1989-1990) and A.A.U.P. Distinguished Scholar of the Year 1990-1991.

Dr. Garrison has published books--Edith Wharton: A Bibliography, and (with Greg Scott) The Political Science Student Writer's Manual--and articles in such periodicals as Browning Society Notes, Studies in the American Renaissance, Resources for American Literary Study, and Poet.

Dr. Mary Spelman

Mary Spelman, a former chair of the English Department, earned her Ph.D. from the Oklahoma State University (1996) and specializes in teaching English as a second language. Her research interests focus on the classroom, especially in the areas of computer assisted language teaching and the use of simulations within this medium.

Dr. Christopher Givan

Christopher F. Givan, known as "Kit," graduated High School from the American School of Manila, in the Philippines.  He earned a B.A. from Yale University and a Ph.D. from Stanford.  At Yale, he was a Scholar of the House in creative writing and won a prize for an unpublished novel written during his senior year.   At Stanford, he completed a doctoral thesis on "The Use of Analogy in Shakespeare," a study which examined the multiplot and recurring patterns of imagery in four plays: Richard II, The Merchant of Venice, MacBeth, and Antony and Cleopatra.

After Stanford, Givan began teaching as an assistant professor at University of California, Santa Barbara where he taught from 1970 to 1976.  He then accepted a Senior Fulbright Lectureship in American Literature to the University of Bucharest in Bucharest, Romania, where he taught for two years.  In 1978, he accepted a position at the University of Puerto, Mayaguez, but a year later moved over to the graduate campus in Rio Piedras.  In l980, he taught as a lecturer at UCLA in the Writing Programs Department also teaching writing in the MBA program.

In l981, Givan became Dean of Franklin College, an American college, in Lugano, Switzerland.  The following year, he became Dean of Academic Affairs at The American College of Switzerland in Leysin, Switzerland. In 1983, he accepted a post as assistant professor in the Department of English at Eastern New Mexico State University at Portales, N.M.  In 1985, he was appointed Dean of Morse College at Yale University and Lecturer in the English Department at Yale.  In 1986, Givan accepted the position of Chair, Department of Creative Studies at UCO.  In l988, he was promoted to the rank of full professor with tenure at UCO.  In 1992, Givan won a second Senior Fulbright Lectureship and taught for a year at the University of Hong Kong in the Dept of Comparative Literature.  He was in Hong Kong for a year and this was also on sabbatical from UCO.  When the Creative Studies Department was merged into the English Department, Givan became a professor in the Department of English.

In 1999-2000, Givan won a third Fulbright Senior Lectureship in American Literature and taught for year in Madagascar at the University of Antananarivo. He has published essays on Shakespeare, J. D. Salinger, John Updike, and Nabokov as well as poetry and short stories.  He continues to teach Shakespeare, Chaucer, 18th Century Literature, 19th and 20th Century American Literature, and various courses in creative writing including: poetry, short story, satire and comedy.

Dr. Susan Spencer

Dr. Kurt Hochenauer

Dr. Kurt Hochenauer teaches the department's modern British literature courses. He teaches a course on the Beat Movement with a focus on American authors Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs. He teaches the online courses Advanced Composition and Blogs: New Independent Media.

He has published academic articles on a wide range of authors, including Henry James, John Steinbeck, and William Shakespeare. He has published articles related to writing pedagogy. He has published short fiction and poetry and presented numerous papers at academic conferences and read fiction and poetry at public readings.

Dr. Hochenauer is also the webmaster for AAUP-UCO.

Chase Dearinger

Chase Dearinger received his Bachelor of Arts in English (emphasis on Literature and Film) from Oklahoma State University in 2006. He worked for two years on a Master of Arts in English Literature at the same school. He began work in Fall 2008 on a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing at UCO. His interests are the short story and the novel. His interests outside of creative writing include film, continental philosophy, the English Romantics and all things Russian. Admittedly, he is a reformed Lacanian. This was once the focus of his undergraduate studies and is now the bane of his existence. He much prefers storytelling now to the symbolic. If all goes as planned, he will be working on a collection of short stories for his thesis.

Marcus Mallard

Marcus Mallard hails from the Oklahoma panhandle, or more specifically, Guymon, Oklahoma. He graduated in 2007 from Oklahoma Panhandle State University with two bachelor's degrees: a B.F.A. in Fine Art and a B.A. in English Traditional Studies.

Marcus' interest in film stems from his previous experience in theater in high school. While working on his undergraduate degrees, Marcus began working in photography and film editing. While still an undergraduate, he was also hired on by his local newspaper to begin writing movie reviews with a little more "local" flair. He would later become the Sports Editor and Interim Editor for the same newspaper.

Horror movies are among Marcus' favorite. In February 2007, he presented his paper "The Zombies that Ate My Social Life" at the Popular Culture and American Culture Southwest Texas Regional Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and he plans on presenting many more essays on horror films at this conference.

Joshua Franklin

Josh began writing at an early age; he published his first book in second grade and never stopped writing after that. This eventually led to his attendance at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, where he received a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing in the spring of 2007, with a specialization in fiction. After Knox, it was back to Michigan, where Josh was born and raised. He attended Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant and was honored with a Master of Arts in Creative Writing in the spring of 2010.

Meredith Seagraves

Meredith Seagraves earned her bachelor's degree in English with summa cum laude honors from the University of Central Oklahoma. She is currently a graduate student majoring in twentieth- and twenty-first-century literature and is particularly interested in Native American literature. During her time at UCO, she has worked as a reading and writing consultant and a supplemental instructor, served as president of both the Language Society and the English Society, and received various honors and awards from UCO and the Osage Nation. She lives in Edmond with her husband, John, her daughter, Estella, and a sassy terrier commonly referred to as Nico-the-freak-o.

Abby Hayes

Abby Hayes received her B.A. in English from Oklahoma State University in 2006 and received an M.A. in Twentieth- and Twenty-first-Century Literature from the University of Central Oklahoma in May of 2012.  She taught First-Year Composition courses at UCO for two years as a Teaching Assistant, and she worked before that as a Reading and Writing Consultant at Tutoring Central.  She enjoys popular culture and using television as a text in her courses.  She also works in the manuscript editing department at the University of Oklahoma Press.

Quinn Irwin

Quinn Irwin received his B.A. in English from Oklahoma State University and holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing (fiction) from the University of Central Oklahoma, where he served as a Teaching Assistant for two and a half years.  He is currently working on a collection of short stories and a novel.

Steve Kluge

Steve Kluge graduated from the University of Central Oklahoma with a Bachelor of Arts in English. For the past two years he has worked at UCO as a Supplemental Instructor for courses on Chaucer and English Literature to 1800. He has also served as President of the English Society and is a member of Sigma Tau Delta, the International English Honor Society, and of the Linguistics Society. He is currently pursuing a Master of Arts degree in English at UCO.

Jamie Korsmo

Jamie recieved her Bachelor of Arts degree in English, with a minor in history, from Oklahoma State University in 2009. She is currently working toward a Master of Arts degree in English at the University of Central Oklahoma with a major in 20th- & 21st-Century Literature and is writing her thesis on the short stories of Sherman Alexie, a modern Native American author. Her interests outside of literature and all things academic include travel, obscure films, and her adorable one-eared cat named Vander (short for Evander Holyfield).

Caitlin Lawson

Caitlin graduated from Yukon High School in 2007. She went on to attend the University of Oklahoma and received her B.A. in English in May 2010 with summa cum laude distinction, having maintained a 4.0 grade point average throughout her course of study. During her undergraduate career she was an Oklahoma Regents Scholar and a University of Oklahoma Honors Scholar, and, in the summer of 2008, she studied abroad at Brasenose College at Oxford University as part of the Honors at Oxford program. She was active in the university's English Club and was a member of Sigma Tau Delta, the English honor society. In April 2010 she was awarded the Goldia Cooksey Memorial Award for Superior Critical essays and was also inducted as a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society. She is now studying 20th- & 21st-Century Film at the University of Central Oklahoma.

Lindsey Hursh

Lindsey Hursh received her B.A. in English from the University of Central Oklahoma in 2009. She was named the Class Marshal for the College of Liberal Arts and graduated Summa Cum Laude. While working as an English teacher for an online high school, Lindsey delivered a paper on Ezra Pound's theory of poetic composition at the College English Association's National Conference in San Antonio, and that paper went on to win CEA's Most Outstanding Graduate Paper Award.

Currently, Lindsey is pursuing her Master's degree in English at UCO. She resides in Yukon with her four-year-old daughter.

Joan Conley

Joan Conley holds two B.A. degrees, one in English with a concentration in creative writing, and one in Philosophy with a concentration in political philosophy. She also holds an M.A. in English Composition with dual focus in Early American Literature and TESL. She has tutored and taught English and writing for over thirty years and also enjoys instructing in beginning logic.

Christy Curnutt

Christy Lynn Curnutt graduated from the University of Central Oklahoma with a Bachelor of Arts in English in 2004. After receiving her degree, she continued to work as a restaurant General Manager. Christy returned to UCO in 2007 and worked as a graduate teaching assistant in the Spring of 2007 and the Fall of 2008. She received her Master of Arts degree in English, with a Composition and Rhetoric major, in August of 2009.

Christy is currently employed for the Department of Justice, working in the Bureau of Prisons, and hopes to soon be teaching for the Bureau.

Lindsay Dearinger

Lindsay received her Bachelor of Arts in English (emphasis on Literature) from Oklahoma State University in 2008. For the last year, she has been working on a Master of Arts in English Literature. Her literary interests include nineteenth-century British novels and poetry, the English Romantics, and Jewish literature. Lindsay's thesis will cover the life and non-fiction religious tracts of the nineteenth-century British Jewish writer Grace Aguilar. Lindsay is also a Religious School teacher at Temple B'nai Israel; she lives in Edmond with her husband, Chase, and two dogs, Lucy and Percy.

Larry Dye

Prior to Larry Dye's return to academia in the spring of 2000, he pre-conditioned stocker cattle and raised small grain in Guthrie, Kentucky. He is the father of four sons for whom he holds the highest respect as young men. Larry earned his M.A. in literature at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale and completed his B.A. at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee.

Larry's academic background and interests are eclectic, including poetry (Blake, Donne, Trakl, Owen, Stafford, Williams, Creeley, Ferlinghetti, etc.), William Faulkner, ancient Greek and Roman civilizations, and Stoic philosophy. As an undergraduate, he participated in a study abroad program in Greece; received instruction from poets such as Dr. David Till, Lisa D. Chavez, Michael Blumenthal, and Blas Falconer; served as a reader for the literary journal Zone 3; and, as a grad student, tutored intensively in the Writing Center at S.I.U. Larry takes an interdisciplinary approach to teaching, believes in a broad liberal arts education, and holds the education of students as a sacred trust of mutual benefit to both student and instructor.

Having been born in Tennessee of parentage rooted in the heart and hill country of central and southwest Texas, Larry Dye, like his great, great uncle Herman Lehmann (Nine Years Among the Indians), moved to Oklahoma late in life albeit under slightly different circumstances. While past activities included flying ultra-light aircraft, scuba diving, riding quarter horses and dirt bikes, playing tennis, and the hunting of deer, dove, and pheasant, Larry now spends his leisure time reading, scouring antique stores, and taking road trips into Americana in the company of his lovely, highly intelligent, geophysically-inclined wife, Alicia.

Amy Glass

Amy Glass is a proud graduate of UCO. She earned her B.A. in English in 2003 and her M.Ed. in 2005. She is working as an adjunct instructor at Rose State College and has worked at OSU-OKC. She is very happy to be teaching in UCO's English department this fall. Currently, she is pursuing alternative certification to teach secondary education. Amy loves teaching students of all ages and educational levels.

As a graduate student, Amy had the honor of being published in the New Plains Review:

Fitzgerald, Amy. "Book Analysis: Power and Legitimacy in Technical Communication: Volume 1." New Plains Review 5 (2005): 151-156.

Fitzgerald, Amy, Jeff Horning, and Alicia Monroe. "Student Computer Literacy and Online Education at the University of Central Oklahoma." New Plains Review 5 (2005): 157-175.

In addition to her achievements, Amy is a member of NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English) and Golden Key International Honour Society.

Amy wants to welcome her students to UCO and hopes everyone has a great academic year!

Dustin Morris

Dustin Morris received his M.A. in 20th- and 21st-Century Studies from the University of Central Oklahoma in December of 2009. He teaches English Composition (ENG 1113) and English Composition and Research (ENG 1213) at UCO. Besides reading, his other interests include traveling, cooking, and getting together with friends. He plans to attend Oklahoma State University to begin work on his Ph.D.

Dr. Jasmine Mulliken

Jasmine Mulliken teaches Composition as an adjunct instructor at UCO and earned her Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin. She earned her Master of Arts degree at UCO in English with an emphasis in Contemporary Literature and completed her Ph.D. from UT in the Spring of 2011 in Joyce and media studies.

Jasmine's research interests include James Joyce, media theory, musicology, digital media, and web identity. She has attended conferences and presented papers in each of these fields. She has taught courses in Oklahoma and Texas in literature, rhetoric, composition, and humanities.

Sarah Coates Peters

Sarah Coates Peters holds a B.A. and an M.A. in English from Wright State University. A native of Dayton, Ohio, she moved last year to Stillwater, where she lives with her husband, Matt, and their three cats. This is her fifth year of teaching composition; she has previously taught composition at Wright State University, Sinclair Community College, and Oklahoma State University. Currently, she is pursuing her Master's of Library and Information Science at the University of Oklahoma.

Katie Shinn

Katie Shinn is a graduate of Oklahoma State University, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature. Katie earned her Master of Arts in Traditional English Studies from the University of Central Oklahoma in 2010. Her personal area of interest is sixteenth- and seventeenth-century British literature. In addition to teaching, Katie enjoys running, traveling, and meeting new people. She hopes to continue teaching English composition as well as to begin work in the near future on her Ph.D.

Benjamin Smith

Benjamin Smith received his bachelor's degree in Film Studies from the University of Oklahoma in 2004, and a master's degree in English, focusing on Film Studies from the University of Central Oklahoma in 2009. His thesis, focusing on the theoretical adaptation processes for comic book cinema, was published in an abridged form in the anthology Adapting America/America Adapted. His academic interests and writings include adaptation theory, comics and culture, and the cultural history of cinema and literature. Ben has presented at the Southwest/Texas Popular and American Culture conference, the Oklahoma Film and Video Studies Society Conference, and the UCO Liberal Arts Symposium, and he was an Invited Lecturer for the Oklahoma City Metro Library. Benjamin has given talks on the films of Romero, the politics of the film 300, and, of course, methods of adapting comics to film. In addition to his academic work, he is an avid guitarist, painter, and short story writer.

Clayton Webber

Clayton Webber received his B.A. in English from the University of Central Oklahoma in 2006, and an M.F.A. from the University of Montana in 2008. While completing his graduate work, Mr. Webber was awarded the Bertha Morton Fellowship, a Teaching Assistantship, and worked as an assistant editor for CutBank, a quarterly academic journal.

Mr. Webber has taught courses on composition, poetry, fiction writing, and creating comic books. In addition to his duties at UCO, Mr. Webber teaches English and Creative Writing at Mount Saint Mary High School in Oklahoma City.  

Alisha Chambers

Alisha grew up in Syracuse, New York, and discovered a love for reading and writing at an early age.  She graduated from Plattsburgh State University of New York with a B.A. in English Writing and a B.A. in Communication Studies in the spring of 2009.  After a year off from school and a move to Oklahoma, it was time for her to earn her M.F.A. in Creative Writing.  She is a line editor for an online publishing company and has been the editor of six published books, and she has also published a short story and poem of her own.  She has studied business, public relations, marketing, rhetoric, interpersonal communication, literature, photography, art, and psychology, although satirical social conformity is her favorite topic.  Her interests include a wide variety of subjects, and she loves to help others find a way into writing on a topic.   She lives in Guthrie with her husband, Jason, her three cats, and occasionally her two monkeys/step-children, Alix and Alyssa.

Matthew Cherry

Matthew Cherry earned his Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Central Oklahoma in 2011 and is pursuing his Master of Arts at the same school.  His primary scholastic interests include creative writing, the short story, and correcting the grammar of others.  He is a veteran of the United States Marine Corps Reserve, his fiction has been published in Calliope magazine, and he intends to pursue a doctoral degree in Texas or Oklahoma.  He lives in Norman with his wife and detests commuting.

Thomas Horne

Thomas Horne received his Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Central Oklahoma in 2011.  He is currently a graduate student working toward a Master of Arts degree in English with a major in Composition and Rhetoric. He advocates writing, and writing often, as the most effective way to grow as a writer.  

A lifelong learner, Thomas has no delusions of having all-encompassing knowledge of the field of English; his love of teaching and of the field of English Studies, combined with a lifetime calling to be an educator, has brought him to UCO.  

Thomas resides in Edmond with his partner Brenton Cooke.  As the first and only person in his immediate family to earn a college degree, let alone seek a post-baccalaureate degree, he brings his non-traditional experience and background to the classroom.  Thomas has been told for his entire life that he should write a book, and one of these days he just might get around to doing so.

Kathy Judge

Kathy is an Oklahoma City native and has been a Putnam City High School English teacher for the last twenty-one years.  She begins the M.F.A. program in Creative Writing this fall and is looking forward to the role of a student, which she has not played since her 1989 graduation from Marquette University. Years of teaching have been a pleasure and have also afforded her summers of travel and enrichment that, along with an interest in history, theology and art, hopefully will be rich fodder for essays, plays, and poems. Kathy is the recipient of The Teacher of the Year honor (2007-8 and 1991-2) from her school colleagues and during the last three years has been a guest speaker for the UCO College of Education and Professional Studies' student-teacher preparation seminar.

Lindsay Dearinger

Lindsay Dearinger is a graduate of Oklahoma State University, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature.  Lindsay earned her Master of Arts in English with a major in Traditional Studies from the University of Central Oklahoma in 2011.  She teaches English Composition (ENG 1113) and English Composition and Research (ENG 1213) at UCO.  Her personal area of interest is nineteenth-century British literature, including Romanticism, Gothicism, Anglo-Jewish writings, and dog imagery in literature.  In addition to taking care of her own two dogs, Lucy and Percy, Lindsay fosters puppies and dogs of all breeds for animal shelters in the Oklahoma City metro area.  Lindsay hopes to continue teaching English Composition, as well as to begin work in the near future on her Ph.D.

Dr. Laura Dumin

Dr. Laura Dumin is an Assistant Professor of English and the Director of Technical Writing. Dr. Dumin received her Ph.D. in technical writing from Oklahoma State University, after receiving her master's in English from Radford University and her undergraduate degree from Virginia Tech.  Dr. Dumin's dissertation focused on the use of passive voice in The American Journal of Botany.  Her research was a pilot study to see how, or whether, the use of passive voice had changed over time, comparing the journal's first five years with the most recent five years.  Dr. Dumin's presentations include a case study on website usability presented at the Southwest Texas Popular Culture and American Culture conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  She joined the UCO faculty in 2011 after teaching in the CORE curriculum program at Radford University in her hometown of Radford, Virginia.  Dr. Dumin has experience in technical editing and document design and brings that workplace experience into the classroom, teaching courses in technical writing and document design.  Dr. Dumin lives in Edmond with her husband and three cats.

Spencer Gee

Spencer Gee was raised in Stillwater, Oklahoma. After high school, he spent two years in Brazil before coming back to Oklahoma.  He attended Oklahoma State University and received bachelor's degrees in both English and Philosophy. After that, he attended UCO and received his master's degree in English, with a focus on Composition and Rhetoric. During his time as a graduate student at UCO, Mr. Gee presented a paper at the 2009 Conference on College Composition and Communication in San Francisco.  His presentation and his thesis focused on the negotiated relationship that writing instructors have with their students -- Who really controls the classroom power relationship?  His research used Michel Foucault's writing on power as a framework to understand the social-epistemic approach to writing instruction as described by James Berlin, Ann Berthoff, and David Bartholomae.  Mr. Gee spends his time away from school with his wife and cats in their Edmond home.

Abby Hayes

Abby Hayes received her bachelor's degree in English Literature from Oklahoma State University in 2006. She is working on a master's degree in 20th- and 21st-Century Literature at UCO. She is also interested in linking literature to anthropology and has presented two conference papers on that subject. This is Abby's second year at UCO. While studying here she has been a writing consultant at Tutoring Central and has participated in UCOnversations, a conversational English group. In her free time, she is an unashamed story junkie, reading for the pure pleasure of the experience and watching as many movies as humanly possible.

Caitlin Lawson

Caitlin graduated from Yukon High School in 2007. She went on to attend the University of Oklahoma and received her B.A. in English in May 2010 with summa cum laude distinction, having maintained a 4.0 grade point average throughout her course of study. During her undergraduate career she was an Oklahoma Regents Scholar and a University of Oklahoma Honors Scholar, and, in the summer of 2008, she studied abroad at Brasenose College at Oxford University as part of the Honors at Oxford program. She was active in the university's English Club and was a member of Sigma Tau Delta, the English honor society. In April 2010 she was awarded the Goldia Cooksey Memorial Award for Superior Critical essays and was also inducted as a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society. She is now studying 20th- & 21st-Century Film at the University of Central Oklahoma. 

Megan Whobrey

Megan Whobrey received her Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Oklahoma in December of 2009.  During her course of study she participated in the Honors at Oxford program through the University Honors College in the summer of 2009 and was a member of Sigma Tau Delta.  Megan also participated in a spirit organization named RUF/NEK Lil Sis while working as a Writing Consultant at the University Writing Center.  She is currently studying 20th- and 21st-Century Literature at the University of Central Oklahoma and living in Norman with her husband, Zane, and an eccentric cat named Lexi.

Jean Lainé

Jean Lainé currently serves as English as a Second Language and World Languages Coordinator for the Putnam City Public Schools.  He earned a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from Capella University, two master's degrees from the University of Central Oklahoma, and a bachelor's degree in Christian Education from Southwestern Christian University.

Sarah Lonelodge

Sarah Lonelodge graduated from Bristow High School in 2005 as a Valedictorian of Distinction and began her college education in the Honors Program at Oklahoma Baptist University.  In 2010, she received her bachelor's degree in Liberal Studies with an emphasis in Humanities from the University of Oklahoma.  She is currently pursuing a Master of Arts degree in English at UCO with a major in Composition and Rhetoric. 

Sarah lives in Shawnee with her wonderfully supportive little family:  her husband, Chris; their sons, Edward and Ivan; Rafiki the cat; and their dog, The Great Khali.  She enjoys reading, watching football, and crushing her husband at Scrabble.

Andrew Terhune

Andrew Terhune is originally from Memphis, Tennessee.  He now lives with his lovely wife and two beautiful daughters in Stillwater, where he is working on his Ph.D. in English at Oklahoma State University.  He holds an M.A. in Cinema Studies from Savannah College of Art & Design and an M.F.A. in Poetry from Columbia College Chicago.  He is the author of the poetry chapbooks Helen Mirren Picks Out My Clothes (the greying ghost press, 2010), This is Not How People Fall in Love (Scantily Clad Press, 2009), and Handle This Bludgeon and Run Me Through (Tilt Press, 2008).  He is a Music Editor for the arts and literature magazine The Fiddleback, and his poems have recently appeared in Rabbit Catastrophe Review, West Wind Review, Court Green, Meridian, DIAGRAM, and Eleven Eleven. 

Rebeccah Nelson

Beccah Nelson graduated from Southwestern Christian University in 2009 with a bachelor's degree in English.  She is currently pursuing a master's degree in English at the University of Central Oklahoma.  Beccah has a love for literature, traveling, Samwise Gamgee, and her toy poodle, London.  Among her favorite authors are Jane Austen, Kate Chopin, and J.R.R. Tolkien.  Beccah plans to pursue a post-graduate degree and to spend the rest of her life teaching students about the wonders of great literature.  She currenlty lives in Yukon, Oklahoma.

Dr. Al LaValley

Al LaValley received his Ph.D. in English Literature at Yale in 1961 and taught English there and at other institutions including San Francisco State, the University of California at Santa Cruz and Rutgers.  In the late 1960s he began to develop burgeoning programs in Film Studies at Livingston College, Rutgers, the University of California at Santa Barbara and, from 1984 to 2001, at Dartmouth College, where he presided over the creation of the Film and Video Studies Department.  He has edited books on Alfred Hitchcock, Mildred Pierce, Invasion of the Body Snatchers and, with Barry Scherr, Eisenstein at 100.  He is currently completing a book on American and European writers and directors who worked in film in Mexico during the Golden Age of Mexican Film.  He has taught a wide array of courses in Film History but most enjoys teaching classical Hollywood from its beginnings through the 1950s, independent American film, European Modernism and Mexican film.  Among his favorite directors are Hitchcock, Eisenstein, Fritz Lang, Vigo, Lubitsch, King Vidor, Antonioni, Fellini, Rossellini, Buñuel, Billy Wilder, Godard, Truffaut, Agnes Varda and Jacques Demy, Andy Warhol and Ida Lupino. Among the indies, he champions Kent McKenzie, Morris Engel, Richard Linklater and Gus van Sant.  He is an unashamed auteurist. He has kept his literary interests alive by teaching Soviet literature and film, Weimar literature and film, European and American writers in Mexico, and other comparative literature courses at Dartmouth.  He taught a course on Mexican film at UCO in 2007.

Sandy Dolan

Sandy earned her B.A. in English from the University of Alaska Anchorage and went on to earn an M.A. in English Literature to prolong her time in Alaska.  Getting to teach composition was a turning point, because she found she loved the classes and the research.  She then returned to her hometown of Akron, Ohio, to complete an M.A. in English Composition.  She returned to Alaska to teach, but since she wanted to continue to teach at the university level, she journeyed to Oklahoma to work on a Ph.D. at the University of Oklahoma.  All the while (a total of seventeen years), she has been teaching university classes in various aspects of composition:  first-year composition, technical writing, argument, research, and autobiography.  Four years ago, she took what she thought was a temporary job at a classical Christian school, teaching sixth-grade humanities.  She still teaches sixth- and seventh-grade humanities but missed the college classroom, so here she is.

Rebecca Braucht-Edmondson

Rebecca Braucht-Edmondson considers herself a hopeless academic.  After dropping out of high school, she was fortunate to be given an opportunity to give it the "old college try," and once she tried, she was hooked.  During her undergraduate years she studied biology, ecology, psychology, art, and anthropology before finally realizing she had accumulated more literature and writing classes and that she should probably make a decision before the university made her an official mascot.  She ultimately received her B.A. in English from Northeastern State University.  From there, she went on to serve as Review Manager and Proof Editor for the American Ornithologists' Union's quarterly publication, The Auk, at the University of Arkansas.  But the hallowed halls of academia kept calling, and in 2005 she went on to complete her state teaching credentials and began teaching English at the secondary level.  During her tenure as a teacher at the secondary level she taught in the Oklahoma City and Muskogee public school systems.  Rebecca completed her M.A. in TESOL with honors at Oklahoma City University in 2008.  She served on the founding board of the Oklahoma Buddhist Association and has served as vice-president and president of the Oklahoma City local affiliate of the Oklahoma Education Association.  She is married, with one amazing son.  In her spare time, she likes to travel, watch birds, and "make stuff," including the current development of her own line of jewelry called Heliotrope.  She is very pleased to be a part of University of Central Oklahoma and looks forward to seeing where this incarnation of her career takes her. 

Julia Daine

Julia K. Daine received her B.A. from Pepperdine University and an M.A. from the University of Oklahoma.  She is currently a doctoral candidate in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Oklahoma.  Ms. Daine has a graduate certificate in Women's and Gender Studies and is a Graduate Teaching Fellow.  In addition to studying at Pepperdine University and the University of Oklahoma, she has studied abroad at Canberra University in Canberra, Australia and at the Université Catholique de Lyon in Lyon, France.  She has presented numerous papers at international and national academic and professional conferences and is published.  Ms. Daine has taught courses including composition, essay writing, American literature, critical and reflective writing, fundamentals of communication and e-learning.

James Cooper

James Cooper received his M.A. in Screen Studies and English at Oklahoma State University where he taught English Composition and worked as the Opinion Editor for the Daily O'Collegian.  He holds a B.A in Film Studies and Political Science from the University of Oklahoma where he studied abroad for his final semester at the University of Bolgona, Italy in 2007.

His master's thesis focused specifically on American horror films released in the 21st century's first decade-i.e., films released between 2000 and 2010.  His research suggests that recent film criticism and genre scholarship neglects the historical and theoretical connection between so-called "Torture Porn" and the 1980s slasher film, arguing that this altogether new generic category limits the discussion of the contemporary horror film and encourages current scholarship to ignore the generic persistence of scenes of brutal and graphic torture within the genre.  Most problematic, this research suggests that such scholarship ignores the shift in gender dynamics present in the recent American horror film as compared to earlier iterations.  Thus, his essay resituates contemporary horror films such as Wolf Creek, Eli Roth's Hostel, Marcus Nipsel's Friday the 13th remake, and Rob Zombie's Halloween remakes in their larger historical and cultural context, focusing not only on the evolution of the slasher monster, but also on the evolution of the earlier slasher protagonist-the Final Girl-into a Final Boy.

In Spring 2010, the OSU English Department awarded James the Audre Chapman Scholarship for Teaching Excellence in Composition for the 2009-2010 academic year.  Earlier that same year, the Society of Professional Journalism Oklahoma awarded him second place for Best Column for his work at the Daily O'Collegian.

James is currently a member of the Oklahoma Film Critics Circle and is a freelance writer for the Oklahoma Gazette.  He is also the editor of u-out.net, a film essay blog. 

His interests include the horror genre, film theory, queer cinema, aesthetics, continental philosophy, film history, queer theory, visual rhetoric, representation, television, the political, and gender.

Dr. John Hitz

John Hitz teaches courses in Linguistics, TESL Grammar, and English Composition for Internationals.  He received B.A. degrees in English Literature and Germanic Studies from Indiana University and his M.S. in Applied Linguistics/ESL from Georgia State University.  His next career move took him to Ankara and Istanbul, Turkey, where he taught English and trained English teachers for six years. 

While in Turkey, he taught himself to speak fluent Turkish.  His overseas experiences made him want to learn more about Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition, so he enrolled in the graduate program in Purdue University's Department of ESL and Second Language Studies, from which he received his Ph.D. in May 2012.  His main research interests are in the influence of the first language on Second Language Acquisition, Turkish Linguistics, Chinese Linguistics, and the relationship between language processing and grammatical representations.

Allison Hedge Coke

Allison Adelle Hedge Coke's authored books include the American Book Award-winning Dog Road Woman and Off-Season City Pipe, poetry; Rock Ghost, Willow, Deer, a memoir; and Blood Run, a verse-play that served to lobby for legislation and protection of the Indigenous site.  Hedge Coke has edited eight additional collections, including Sing: Poetry from the Indigenous Americas, Effigies and Effigies II. She came of age cropping tobacco and working fields, waters, and working in factories.

Dorothy Cady

Dorothy Cady received her Master of Education degree from the University of Central Oklahoma in May 2009, and she is currently pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. Cady is the author of multiple technical, business and text books; has published nonfiction articles and short stories for various online and print publications; and serves as an adjunct faculty member in UCO's Department of Adult Education and Safety Science.

Alexandra Temblador

Alexandra Temblador, a native and proud Texan, is a graduate student at the University of Central Oklahoma.  She is working on her Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing focusing on short story and novel writing.  Her writing tends to focus on individuals in difficult situations, cross-over cultures in America, and politically active or controversial stories.  Alex has one published short story and looks forward to publishing more.  She received her Bachelor of Arts in History with a minor in Spanish, summa cum laude, from the University of Louisiana at Monroe.  Her historical interest focused on women in the ancient world, specifically those women who toppled the hierarchy and status quo of the ages.  Outside of school and work, Alex enjoys reading, writing, playing sports, traveling, and painting and drawing.

Adam Ferrari

Adam Ferrari received a B.A. in English from the University of Central Oklahoma in 2008 and a law degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 2012.  During his time at UCO, Adam was active in the school's creative writing community, publishing a few poems and stories in small journals and having three short plays produced.

Today, Adam is pursuing an M.A. in Traditional Studies, and he eventually plans to earn a Ph.D. in Composition.  He loves to help new college writers cultivate their own voices and ideas about the world before jobs and academia clutter their minds with the manmade structures, walls, and certainties that can restrict such individualized growth.

Adam lives in Oklahoma City with his wife Kellie.  He enjoys music and basketball, and he hopes one day to understand humans well enough to write a novel with multiple characters.

Corey Hamilton

Corey graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Central Oklahoma in 2012.  He is currently pursuing a master's degree in composition and rhetoric.  His ultimate goal is to earn a Ph.D. in English en route to a career as a Professor of English specializing in the teaching of composition.  Corey is the current president of the UCO Language Society and current treasurer of UCO's Chi Gamma chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, the International English Honor Society.  In addition to his involvement in student organizations, Corey also serves as conference organizer and program editor for the Language and Linguistics Student Conference, which takes place annually at UCO.  He is past president of the UCO English Society, treasurer for the Symposium of Philosophy, and House Representative for the UCO Language and English Societies and for Sigma Tau Delta.  When Corey is not reading, writing, or representing an English student organization in some capacity, you will find him riding his bicycle in pursuit of a century ride.

Katt Evans

Katt Evans received her B.A. in Writing in 2008 from the University of Central Arkansas, where she was part of the Honors Program, was the first to graduate with honors from the Writing Department, and spent a year working as a writing tutor and as part of the Conversation Group for ESL students.  She is a third-year graduate student working toward an M.F.A. in Creative Writing and has taken courses in Short Story, Novel, Creative Nonfiction, and Poetry.  She has also worked for two years as an English Reading and Writing Consultant at UCO; has organized several workshops on writing, both creative and academic; has served for two years as Vice President of the Creative Studies Writers' Institute (CSWI); and has received several academic awards.  She plans to earn a Ph. D. in Creative Writing.  In addition to reading, writing, and teaching, her interests include painting, music of all genres, and Werecreature literature of any kind.  She currently lives in Guthrie with her three roommates, their mini-ark of animals, and her spastic Bearded Dragon, Awol.

Bryce McCleary

Bryce McCleary earned his B.A. in English from UCO, where he became interested in and focused on Linguistics and Gender Studies.  Bryce is currently enrolled in UCO's graduate program in Composition and Rhetoric, and he intends to pursue further postgraduate studies in Linguistics and Sociolinguistics.  During his time at UCO, Bryce has spent three academic years as a Reading and Writing Consultant, has developed and presented workshops on writing, and has been an invited guest lecturer in a number of different classes on campus.  He lives in Oklahoma City, where he participates in extracurricular activities such as running, learning foreign languages, and taking part in community events.

Dr. Clifton Warren

Dr. Clifton Warren, Professor Emeritus of English and Dean Emeritus of the College of Liberal Arts, received his bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Richmond and his Ph.D. from Indiana University.  Dr. Warren teaches courses in creative writing and literature at the undergraduate and graduate levels and works with thesis students in creative writing.

Mandee Chapman-Roach

Mandee Chapman-Roach earned both a B.F.A. in Theatre Arts and an M.A. in English from the University of Central Oklahoma.  She currently divides her professional time between teaching English at Yukon High School and working as a community actress with Oklahoma Shakespeare in the Park. 

Dr. Gregory Stephens

Gregory Stephens has taught film and multi-ethnic literature at the University of South Florida (2010-2012), New Mexico State University (2008-2010) and the University of the West Indies at Mona (2004-2008).  At the University of the West Indies, Stephens earned a master's degree in Spanish literature, with a thesis on Zapatista discourse.  His writings on Latin American literature have appeared in journals such as Latin American Literary Review and Confluencia.  During a 2001-02 Rockefeller Fellowship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he studied debates about bilingualism and did ethnographic research among Spanish-speaking immigrants in North Carolina and Oklahoma.  

After a career as an award-winning songwriter in Austin, Texas, Stephen received a Ph.D. in Communication from the University of California at San Diego.  He is the author of On Racial Frontiers:  The New Culture of Frederick Douglass, Ralph Ellison, and Bob Marley (Cambridge University Press, 1999).  His journalism has appeared in many forums, from the Los Angeles Times to online forums.  Much of his scholarship and journalism has been gathered at http://www.gregorystephens.wordpress.com.

Recent film studies include "Corn-Fed Culture: Living Large and ‘Eating Shit' in King Corn and Fast Food Nation," and "Going to Alaska:  Vision Quests, Quasi-Indians, and Great Escapes on the Last Frontier."  Stephens is currently completing a book manuscript titled Real Revolutionaries in Literature and Film.

Marcus Mallard

Marcus Mallard received his Master of Arts degree in English and Film Studies from UCO in 2010.  He holds a Bachelor of Arts in English and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting.  His research has focused on the role of horror films in popular culture, with a concentration on the evolution of the zombie film.  Marcus also has interests in exploring the production practices of television and the ways these practices influenced genre shows in the early years of the medium.  His research also explores the role comic books play in developing popular culture mediums.  Marcus lives in Edmond with his wife, Leah.

Holly Kreidler

Holly Kreidler graduated from the University of Central Oklahoma with a Master of Arts degree in English in 1997.  She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English, also obtained at UCO, as well as a Master of Liberal Studies in Administrative Leadership from the University of Oklahoma.  After a fifteen-year career in non-profit fund development and leadership, she is returning to UCO to teach English Composition while working as Grant Writer for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Oklahoma.  Her areas of interest include early British literature through Milton, good and evil in literature, and Composition.  Holly lives in Edmond with her husband Steve and their three rescue dogs Milton, Bella and Lily.

Bobby Reed

Bobby Reed received a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Central Oklahoma in 2010 and is pursuing a Master of Arts at the same school.  His primary academic interests include contemporary Science Fiction, Fantasy and other fringe literary forms, including comic books, video games and conspiracy theories.  He operates a recording studio from his home and regularly produces albums and plays concerts under the moniker "theguiltracket."  He lives in Oklahoma City with a family of introverted cats, and he can't wait to teach you about using and understanding language.

Chris Vian

Chris Vian received his B.A. in Communication from the University of Oklahoma in 2010 and is currently pursuing an M.A. in Twentieth- and Twenty-first-Century Studies with an emphasis on film. His research revolves around the presentation of gender and sexuality in media. He advocates looking at Pop Culture as a way of understating our society and the way we relate to one another. He has recently published work in ScissorTale Review and has presented papers at several conferences including the National Communication Association Conference and the Popular Culture/American Culture Association National Conference.

Chris currently resides in Norman with Tracy, his husband of six years; a couple of roommates; and two cats with too much personality. He is the first person in his family to receive a B.A. and the first to attempt to gain a graduate degree. He ultimately hopes to obtain a Ph.D. and become a university professor.

Dr. Matthew Moore

Dr. Matthew Moore is the Director of Debate at UCO and an adjunct instructor for several departments on campus. He is a native of Belleville, Illinois, and received his B.A. (Political Science) and M.S. (Speech Communication) from Southern Illinois University. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Missouri.

Dr. Moore teaches courses related to the debate program at UCO. “Argumentation and Debate” is designed for students interested in participating on the UCO debate team. The course teaches students the basics of argumentation and provides students with the skills they need to compete in intercollegiate debate. UCO participates in competitive policy debate on the NDT/CEDA circuit against teams from around the country including Harvard, Michigan, Stanford, USC, and Oklahoma. “Coaching High School Debate” is a course designed for students seeking to become high school speech and English teachers. Before taking over at UCO, Dr. Moore was the Assistant Director of Debate at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois.

Dr. Moore’s research interests include terrorism, the international trade of major conventional weapons, arms control, and alliances. His work can be found in The Journal of Conflict Resolution and International Interactions. Dr. Moore currently lives in Edmond with his wife Sarah.

Dr. Leslie Similly

Leslie Similly is an Assistant Professor of English with specialization in Composition and Rhetoric. She completed her Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Arlington after receiving her B.A and M.A. from UCO. Her dissertation, Make it Plain, Preacha’: African American Rhetorical License, AAVE, and the Modern Rendering of Epideictic Rhetoric in Black Church Sermons, examines the rhetorical and paralinguistic features common in African American sermonic discourse.

Dr. Similly’s presentations include “Seeing Sodom:  Blindness and the Gaze in the Sodom Narrative” presented at the Christianity and Literature Conference in Wheaton, Illinois in September, 2009 and “Mic Check: Kairos, Ethos, Style, and the Display of Self in Extemporaneous Rap Battles” presented at the Southwest/Texas Popular & American Culture Association Conference in  San Antonio, TX in April, 2011.

Dr. Similly considers herself a popular culture rhetorician and her primary research interests include the changing rhetoric of Race and Identity, rhetoric of Hip-Hop, and modern applications of Classical Rhetoric.