Division of Continual Learning
Faculty Bios
BLS instructors are current professors at UNCG. They are among some of the best in their fields and have an interest in working with adults. Many are distinguished teaching award winners.
Kathleen Ahern, Ph.D. (The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) is Assistant Professor in the Department of German, Russian, Japanese and Chinese Studies at UNCG. Ahern’s specialty is Modern Russian Literature, and her work in African-American literary ties to Russian intellectual thought was instrumental in UNCG receiving UCEA/Peterson’s Innovative Distance Education Program Award in 2000.
Ken Allan, Ph.D. (University of California at Riverside) is Associate Professor of Sociology at UNCG. His most recent teaching and publications are in the areas of sociological theory, social psychology, and sociology of culture.
Will Derusha, Ph.D. (University of Georgia) is Associate Professor of Spanish at UNCG. His specialties include 20th century Spanish poetry and Spanish culture, literature, and the intertextuality of image and word. Duke University Press recently published his translation of Rubén Darío’s masterpiece, Songs of Life and Hope.
Emily Edwards, Ph.D. (University of Tennessee, Knoxville) is Associate Professor of Broadcasting and Cinema at UNCG. She teaches courses in media writing, gender and media culture, and film and video production. In addition, she produces independent documentaries, video art, and animation shorts.
Pat Fairfield-Artman, M.A. (The University of North Carolina at Greensboro) has been teaching courses in communication ethics, strategic communication, public relations and business and professional communication at UNCG for six years. Her scholarly interests include the development of speaking competency and communication ethics in public relations.
Robert Hansen, Ph.D. (University of Minnesota) is Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at UNCG, where he has been a faculty member since 1986. He teaches in the areas of theatre history, dramatic literature, non-western theatre, musical theatre, and stage design.
William Hart, Ph.D. (Princeton University) is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at UNCG. His areas of academic interest include religion and imperialism, the ethical-political dimensions of religion, African-American religious history, culture and thought, and critical theory of religion.
Carrie Levesque, Ph.D. (Duke University) is a full-time lecturer in the Department of German, Russian, Japanese and Chinese Studies at UNCG. She completed her dissertation on women's autobiographical responses to war and terror in the Soviet Union and Croatia.
Susanna J. Link, M.A. (University of Virginia) is an editor of numerous historical manuscripts, an assistant editor of The Papers of James Madison , and author of Harriet Elliott: A Brief Appreciation (1998) and “Randall Jarrell,” in The North Carolina Century: Tar Heels Who Made a Difference, 1900-2000.
Andreas Lixl, Ph.D. (University of Wisconsin) has been on the UNCG faculty since 1987 and Head of the Department of German, Russian, Japanese and Chinese since 1999. His teaching and research has focused on German literature and cultural history, Jewish autobiographies, Weimar Theater, film and mass media, and new teaching technologies. He has published several books and received numerous awards and grants.
Wade Maki, M.A. (Bowling Green State University) is a lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at UNCG. His scholarly interests are in applied ethics and political philosophy. Maki teaches courses in business ethics, medical ethics, contemporary moral problems, and political philosophy.
Matthew McKinnon, Ph.D. (Marquette University) is a lecturer in the Department of Religious Studies at UNCG. His interests include modern western religious thought, continental philosophy, religion and contemporary culture, and contemporary spirituality. In addition to Mystics in America, he has taught Religion and Contemporary Culture, Pluralism and Democracy in America and Modern Problems of Belief.
Ann Millett, Ph.D. (The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) is an adjunct faculty member for UNC-Greensboro and UNC-Chapel Hill, where she serves also as a research assistant. Her research focuses on representations of disability in visual culture.
Donata Nelson, M.A. (The University of North Carolina at Greensboro) is an adjunct instructor in the Department of Communication Studies at UNCG. Born in Poland, she has made her home in Greensboro after coming to the United States as a high school exchange student. Her scholarly research interests include gender, communication theory, and interpersonal/relational communication.
Amber Reed, M.A. (The University of North Carolina at Greensboro) is a lecturer in the Department of Sociology at UNCG. Her main scholarly interests include domestic violence and gender relations with an increasing interest in theory. Before beginning to teach, she helped evaluate the Safe Schools/Healthy Students Program in Stokes County.
Joseph Rosenblum, Ph.D. (Duke University) has taught at UNCG since 1980. In 1990 he won second prize in the Oxford University Press English Detective Fiction contest with a story about a thief who leaves Shakespearean quotations in lieu of the objects he steals.
Hephzibah Roskelly, Ph.D. (University of Louisville) directs the composition program at UNCG. She teaches courses in Rhetoric and Composition, and American Literature and Culture. Her special interests include pedagogy, literacy, theories of composition and gender studies. She is the recipient of the 1998 Alumni Teaching Excellence Award.
Stephen Ruzicka, Ph.D. (University of Chicago) is Associate Professor of History at UNCG. His interests as a classical historian focus on periods of cultural change. He is the recipient of the 2000 Alumni Teaching Excellence Award.
Tracey Salisbury, M.A. (Central Michigan University) is a lecturer in the African American Studies Department at UNCG. She is currently working to complete her doctoral degree in Socio-Historical Sport Studies at UNCG. Her research interests are African American history and culture, women and sport, and hip-hop music and culture.
Deborah Seabrooke, M.F.A. (The University of North Carolina at Greensboro) teaches in the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies at UNCG. Her work has appeared in numerous magazines and Best American Short Stories. A chapbook of her short stories, Margins of Error, was published by Unicorn Press in 2005.
Claude Tate, M.A. (The University of North Carolina at Greensboro) is a veteran educator. In addition to teaching in the BLS program at UNCG, he has taught various history courses at the high school level, including Advanced Placement classes in both U.S. and World History. Mr. Tate is interested in issues associated with cultural identity.
Karen Weyler, Ph.D. (The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) is Associate Head of the English Department and Associate Professor of English at UNCG. Her research interests include early American literature, women’s writing, the history and theory of the novel, personal narratives, and the history of the book.
Marc Williams, M.F.A. (The University of North Carolina at Greensboro) was the 2001 recipient of the Leighton Ballew Directing Award and the William Wilson Graduate Award from the Southeastern Theatre Conference. His directing credits include Lovers & Executioners, The Jewish Wife, Cloud 9, On Golden Pond and The Water Engine.