College grants tenure to five faculty members
MIDDLEBURY, Vt. – Five members of the Middlebury College faculty – Febe Armanios (history), Laurie Essig (sociology/anthropology and women’s and gender studies), Matthew Kimble (psychology), Hedya Klein (studio art) and Stefano Mula (Italian) – have been promoted to the rank of associate professor without limit of tenure.
The board of trustees, at its meeting in December, accepted the recommendations of President Ronald D. Liebowitz and the board’s educational affairs committee in promoting the five faculty members. Their promotions take effect July 1, 2011.
Febe Armanios received her bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees from the Ohio State University. She teaches courses that span the seventh-century rise of Islam through the present-day Middle East. Her research interests include Coptic Christians in Ottoman Egypt, Muslim/non-Muslim relations, and women and gender in the Middle East. Her book, “Coptic Christianity in Ottoman Egypt,” is forthcoming from Oxford University Press. She has received fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Freeman Foundation, and, most recently, from the Pentecostal and Charismatic Research Initiative.
Laurie Essig teaches courses on the sociology of gender, freakishness, and sociology of heterosexuality. She is the author of two books: “Queer in Russia: A Story of Sex, Self, and the Other” (Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1999), and “American Plastic: Boob Jobs, Credit Cards, and Our Quest for Perfection” (Beacon Press, 2010). Essig writes regular commentary for “Brainstorm,” a Chronicle of Higher Education blog. A graduate of Franklin and Marshall College, she holds master’s and doctoral degrees from Columbia University.
Matthew Kimble has a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College and a doctorate in clinical psychology from Boston University. Prior to joining the faculty, he worked for six years at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Boston, and his research is focused upon attentional processes in survivors of psychological trauma, particularly military veterans. His research on post-traumatic stress disorder has received support from the Vermont Genetics Network and the National Institutes of Mental Health. His courses at Middlebury include psychological disorders, research methods in psychology, and psychological trauma.
Hedya Klein is a printmaker and visual artist who in 2010 exhibited her work at Forum Stadtpark in Graz, Austria; Parco d’Arte Contemporanea in Livorno, Italy; and Experimental Intermedia in New York City. She holds an undergraduate degree in fine arts from the Massachusetts College of Art and a master’s in fine arts from Columbia University, and teaches courses at Middlebury in advanced drawing and printmaking. Klein’s most recent one-person exhibit was at the Kentler International Drawing Space in Brooklyn and was titled “Still-a-Life.”
Stefano Mula teaches courses in Italian language and literature, including Dante’s “The Divine Comedy,” as well as in linguistics. His research focuses on medieval narrative, particularly Cistercian exempla, hagiography, and Arthurian legend. He holds a doctoral degree in comparative literature from the University of Cagliari (Italy), and recently collaborated on a French translation of Jacques de Voragine’s “La Légende Dorée.” Mula regularly teaches a course in world literature that examines the role of translation as a medium for understanding different cultures.