Faculty Highlights

Our faculty members in the College of Liberal Arts excel in teaching, mentorship, grant writing and scholarship. Here are a few faculty news highlights from this year.

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How mentorship inspired one professor to pursue a career in higher education

Sherita Roundtree, Ph.D., shares how mentorship, collaboration can inspire confidence.

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Ancient artifacts create opportunities for connection

A partnership between TU archaeologists and indigenous stakeholders is building more balanced historical narratives.

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New trail aims to preserve local history

TU faculty, students are helping create a three-mile greenway connecting a Towson community to the plantation where its ancestors were once enslaved.

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College students explore Cherry Heights, Baltimore Co. Enclave once reserved for Black residents

Under the direction of Professor Sya Buryn Kedzior, four Towson students studied the historic origins and roots of a Baltimore county neighborhood that was strictly designed as a home for African Americans in 1909.

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Grant Awardees

Joseph Dietrich

Assistant Professor

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Dr. Joseph Dietrich, Assistant Professor of Political Sciences, was awarded a grant by Public Agenda, in partnership with Four Direction Native Vote, for his project MoVE (Measure of Voting Equity), a collaboration with Dr. Melissa Rogers of Claremont Graduate University. Through the grant, Drs. Dietrich and Rogers will “create a scoring system to quantify differences in electoral access across U.S. counties.”

Harjant Gill

Assistant Professor

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Dr. Harjant S. Gill, Associate Professor of Sociology, was awarded the Antipode Foundation Grant for his work on surveillance, security and democracy in India. This grant will fund filmmaking for a “documentary to bridge the gaps between academic scholarship and public knowledge, to provide social justice-oriented educators and activists with resources for their work, and to foster critical thinking through creative expression.”

Dr. Allison McCartney

Dean of the Honors College, Professor

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Dr. Alison McCartney, Professor of Political Science and Dean of the Honors College, was awarded a grant from the Tall-Wiedefeld Society in support of the Baltimore County Public School Model United Nations, a program that “brings the students together for an accessible and mutually beneficial civic engagement learning program.”

Dr. Alisha Reaves

Assistant Professor

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Dr. Alisha Reaves, Assistant Professor of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, was awarded the Spencer Grant from the Spencer Foundation for her research on second-language acquisition. Dr. Reaves’ research focuses on high-variability phonetic training (HVPT), which is used in language teaching to aid non-native speakers learn new sounds.

Sabbatical Talks

Faculty Books

 

Remembering Dr. Halcyon Lawrence and Kathleen Hajdamacha

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Dr. Halcyon Lawrence

In mid-October 2023, Associate Professor of English Dr. Halcyon Lawrence was a few months into her fifth year at Towson when she came down with what she thought was a bad case of strep throat. A few weeks later, she had died, having spent her final days with her beloved sister, who had flown in from Trinidad, and her pastor, who prayed with her just moments before she passed away. In her wake, she left so many grieving communities, from her home in Trinidad to the various US cities that became homes to her as she built an academic career through positions that spanned from Chicago to Atlanta to Baltimore. Halcyon’s area of expertise was technical communication, a discipline that focuses on the communication possibilities and challenges that arise at the interface between humans and technology. When asked by her long-time research partner and friend, Liz Hutter, why she was so interested in technical communication, Halcyon responded with delight: “It’s all about the user!” The user that occupied much of Halcyon’s research was the English speaker against whose accent speech-recognition technology was biased. She is recognized as a trailblazer in her discipline through her academic publications and publicly engaged work, from podcast interviews to consulting work in the community. Her curiosity and focus on the user experience extended beyond her research and into the classroom, the faculty office, and the committee or department meeting. In these spaces, too, she would think about who is heard and who is conditioned to speak themselves inauthentically. This disposition made her an invaluable mentor, teacher, advisor, and colleague. Halcyon had an unerring ability to see those rendered invisible, hear those not understood, and acknowledge their work. Her curious, incisive lines of questioning made it possible to take on challenges in the realm of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Her compassionate validation of her colleagues and students suffused our Towson community with care, warmth, and joy. We will remember her best by carrying on her practice of acknowledging the good things happening around us, of asking our students to tell us their stories, of finding much to delight in and much to continue working on.

More about Dr. Lawrence
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Kathleen Hajdamacha 

Kathleen Hajdamacha (or KB, which was her sign name) worked as a Deaf Studies Lecturer at TU for 9 years. She held a BA from Gallaudet University and an MA in Deaf Education from McDaniel College. Last winter she found out suddenly that she was suffering from very serious cancer. Her inability to conquer the disease was heartbreaking for all who knew her. Faculty members in the Deaf Studies program, who had worked with her for years, were particularly hard hit by the loss, as she had contributed so significantly to the program and the community. Colleagues and students remembered Kathleen as a sweet person and an attentive listener. She demonstrated her close connection to faculty and students in everyday ways: gestures of caring and engagement that students recalled as they mourned her loss. Students appreciated that she took the time to talk and to get to know each student well, especially her DFST major advisees. For her colleagues, KB’s strength was sharing her calming presence when the semester felt particularly tense or chaotic. As one colleague noted, “Kathleen was the only faculty who always had a wonderfully sunny attitude every day.” When KB took a leave of absence last winter because of her illness, students frequently asked about her, prompting another of her colleagues to ask her what her secret was. She laughed and responded that it was important to be friendly, positive, and to always chat with the students. Kathleen was survived by her husband, two stepchildren, three grandchildren, her brother and sister, and many nieces, nephews, and friends. She will be missed by her family, her friends, and all current and former Deaf Studies students and faculty.

More about Kathleen Hajdamacha