Hamilton College recently welcomed newly-appointed faculty to campus for the 2019–2020 academic year. New tenure track faculty includes Naser Al Madi, Mo Alloush, Clark Bowman, Pritha Chaudhuri, Jason Cieply, Usman Hamid, Michael Welsh, Jeanne Willcoxon, and Ryan Carter.
Welsh, a professor of chemistry, identifies similarities between Hamilton and his own college.
“I attended a school that’s very similar to Hamilton, and I would say that more than anything it was my Chemistry professors there that inspired me to teach at a liberal arts college,” he said. “They were fantastic teachers and mentors.”
Professor of Theatre Jeanne Willcoxon is impressed by the educational opportunities and community on campus.
“I’ve found that the [Hamilton] students truly encourage and engage with each other in the classroom, making classes a rich collaborative learning experience for all,” she said. “I also have to include faculty and staff in this — I’ve taught at other institutions and Hamilton’s faculty, staff, and students seem to always be at the ready to help support each other. It is, in other words, just a great environment in which to grow!”
Welsh agreed, adding, “At Hamilton, the resources available for research are fantastic for a college of its size, so that was a big attraction. Not to mention the students, who I’ve continually found to be friendly, bright, and capable.”
Willcoxon’s research focuses on feminist performance, theater for social change, and performance phenomenology. She expressed excitement to teach at an institution grounded in liberal arts values.
“The biggest message that students take from my class, I hope, is that there are many ways of thinking about the past and present,” said Willcoxon. “The other message would be that they should trust their abilities to create theatre — I often say that they will create theatre that I can’t even imagine… and that is a really good thing!”
In addition to working with Hamilton’s academic opportunities, faculty members said they are thrilled to become a part of the College community.
Said Welsh: “I’m very excited to get research going with my two thesis students (shoutout to Micaela and Juliana.) But I’m also a former D[ivision] III athlete and a big sports fan. I’m pretty pumped to be able to walk out of the Science Center and straight into hockey and basketball games or an indoor track meet. I’m definitely looking forward to supporting all of the sports teams here at Hamilton.”
Incoming professor of Asian Studies Usman Hamid said he became interest in teaching at Hamilton after viewing the school’s job listing for a specialist of Islam in Asia.
“My training as a scholar of Islam has always been in the context of interdisciplinary area studies programs, first at the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill University, and then later at the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto,” Hamid said. “Therefore, the fact that Hamilton was looking to appoint someone to teach Islam in an interdisciplinary area studies context made me very excited. As I got to know of the faculty here and their research and teaching, I felt Hamilton would be a great fit.”
Other new faculty include Mairin Augustine, Jonas Brodin, Priya Chandrasekaran, Taylor Clock, Megan Dean, Dannah Dennis, Rebecca Dyer, Emma Flacard, Debra Freas, Adam Giannelli, David Jacobs, Chitra Jogani, Ruth Lo, Heather MacArthur, Francis MacDonnell, Theo Mazumdar, Anne Richard, Tural Sadigov, Michael Shapiro, John Shea, Megan Smith, Stina Soderling, Katarzyna Stempniak, Mahala Stewart, Emiko Stock, Han-Hsin Sung, Yen Vu, Chenyu Wang, Fei Wu, and Takuma Yoshida.
