Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences’ outstanding faculty in our eight academic departments and numerous interdisciplinary programs support innovative curriculum, cutting-edge research, and public programming to ensure that the arts, humanities, and social sciences remain the distinguishing component in every student’s education. This spring, the Wilkinson College faculty listed below were recognized with promotions, honors, and awards. Congratulations to all our faculty for an amazing academic year!

Faculty Tenure and/or Promotion
The following faculty have been reviewed by their peers and their administrators during 2022-2023 and have been awarded tenure and/or promotion effective at the beginning of the 2023-2024 academic year.

James Blaylock
Awarded the honor of Professor Emeritus of English

John Compton
Promoted to Full Professor of Political Science

Nubar Hovsepian
Awarded the honor of Associate Professor Emeritus of Political Science

Lynn Horton
Awarded the honor of Associate Professor Emerita of Sociology

Jeffrey Koerber
Awarded Tenure and Promoted to Associate Professor of History

Andrea Molle
Awarded Tenure and Promoted to Associate Professor of Political Science

Federico Pacchioni
Promoted to Full Professor of Italian

Justin Walsh
Promoted to Full Professor of Art History, Archeology, and Space Studies

2023 Valerie Scudder Award
The Valerie Scudder Award is in recognition of outstanding achievement in teaching, scholarly/creative activity, and service to the university. The recipients of this award are chosen by their peers for their exceptional contributions. The Valerie Scudder Award was the first award of merit to be given to faculty members by the university. It began around 1980, when trustee Valerie Scudder, a returning adult student to Chapman College, approached the administrators with her desire to honor faculty for their excellence.

In addition to a $9,000 honorarium, award winners’ names are placed on a plaque, exhibited in the Doy and Dee Henley Reading Room of the Leatherby Libraries. This year, Wilkinson College faculty won one of the three Scudder Awards awarded annually.

Dr. Brian Glaser, Associate Instructional Professor, English

2023-2024 Unit Faculty Excellence Award
Unit Faculty Awards are peer recognition of exceptional contributions in the areas of teaching and/or scholarly/creative activity and/or service to the university. A $1,000 award accompanies this recognition by faculty colleagues.

Dr. Brian Glaser, Associate Instructional Professor, English

Dr. Michael Wood, Assistant Instructional Professor, World Languages and Cultures

Dr. Justin Walsh, Associate Professor, Art History, Archeology, and Space Studies

2023-24 Sabbatical and Development Leave Awards

Dr. Alex Bay, Associate Professor, History
From Cholera to COVID-19: A History of Hygiene in Modern Japan
Dr. Alex Bay (History) has been awarded a sabbatical leave for the 2023-2024 academic year. He will use the leave to research “From Cholera to COVID-19: A History of Hygiene in Modern Japan,” an ambitious book project that seeks to trace the development of public health in 20th-century Japan through the lenses of medicine, the environment, and material culture.

Dr. Kent Lehnhof, Professor, English
Vocality and Ethics in Shakespeare’s Late Plays
Dr. Kent Lehnhof (English) has been awarded a One-Year Release for Scholarly and Creative Activity for the 2023-2024 academic year. Dr. Lehnhof will use the leave to complete his book “Vocality and Ethics in Shakespeare’s Late Plays.” The book draws on the writings of several 21st-century philosophers of the voice–Adriana Cavarero, Mladen Dolar, and David Kleinberg-Levin–to explore the ethical dimensions of the voice in four of Shakespeare’s plays.

Dr. Martin Nakell, Professor, English
The Carcass of the Lion
Dr. Martin Nakell (English) has been awarded a One-Year Release for Scholarly and Creative Activity for the 2023-2024 academic year. He will use the year to complete a new novel entitled “The Carcass of the Lion,” based on his grandfather. The novel spans the 20th and 21st centuries, looking at the developments in social science, arts, science, and politics as he travels from Europe to Israel to the United States.

Pedagogical Innovation Grants
The Pedagogical Innovation Grant (up to $5,000) is intended to support faculty in innovative teaching that advances Chapman’s aim to provide students with personalized education of distinction that leads to inquiring, ethical, and productive lives as global citizens.

Dr. Shira Klein, Associate Professor, History
The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict in History, Film, and Social Media
Dr. Klein’s idea for a new course entitled “The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict in History, Film, and Social Media” came from the tremendous interest her students have shown in this topic. Dr. Klein will break new ground by teaching students to evaluate present-day social media messages about the conflict. After learning the history of this conflict through peer-reviewed literature by top scholars in the field, students will evaluate this history’s portrayals in social media, songs, and film.

Dr. Richelle Tanner, Assistant Professor, Environmental Science and Policy
Diverse Perspectives in Conservation Biology
Project-based learning (Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences) in upper-division ecology courses is an increasingly popular and evidenced approach to building independent research skills and sense of belonging in STEM, especially for underrepresented groups of students.  Diverse Perspectives in Conservation Biology will integrate traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) to broaden the perspectives offered to students for what robust science is and can be. TEK is held by indigenous groups and operates under different cultural norms that prioritize respect and stewardship of nature. This course will be held during Interterm 2024 at the USC Wrigley Institute on Catalina Island to take advantage of the island’s historical occupancy. This course will be offered in ESP and Biology as an upper-division elective.