Faculty Profiles

Dr. Purna Banerjee

Shilling 434A
420-6795
pbanerjee@mail.millikin.edu

Purna Banerjee (Ph.D. Texas Christian University)
Assistant Professor of English

In the summer of 2005 Dr. Banerjee successfully defended her dissertation, "Incidental Occurences: Exchanges Between British and Indian Women Writers (1840-1940)." She received highest distinction from the committee. She continues research on intellectual exchange and the Victorian constructions of the female subject. She also has research interest in oral and prose narratives and poems produced by displaced women. She received several teaching awards from Texas Christian University, and teaches courses on international literature and CWRR at Millikin.

Carmella Braniger (Ph.D. Oklahoma State University)
Assistant Professor of English

Director of Critical Writing Reading & Research (CWRR)
Co-advisor, Collage, Millikin's literary magazine

Dr. Braniger combines poetics and rhetoric in her CWRR courses, introducing students to methods for developing their own personal voices for engaging diverse professional and personal issues in their writing. In the first semester course, students explore their literacy histories in relation to histories of others, providing students with an opportunity to reflect on their own identies as readers and writers in relation to larger cultural and historical literacy identities. This exploration of and reflection on the self extends into the second semester of CWRR, where students are asked to contribute to academic discussions and discourses concerning the social, cultural, philosophical, economical, educationl, political, behavioral and ethical aspects of identy formation in the contexxt of our participation in an ever-evolving global cyberculture. Along the way, students are asked to read, write, research and reflect on their personal and professionals lives.

Judi Crowe (M.A., Illinois State University)
Assistant Professor of English & Professional Writing Tutor

Director of the Writing Center
English Advisor, College Readiness Program

Before joining the English department at Millikin in 1998, Judi Crowe earned her M.A. in writing and rhetoric at Illinois State University and was an instructor and writing tutor at Richland Community College, Lincoln Land, and Parkland Colleges. She teaches Critical Writing, Reading, and Research and serves as Director of the Writing Center. Judi also teaches literature as well as The Bahamas Seminar course, which annually publishes The Bahamas Index and Yearbook.

She was a 1991 English graduate of Millikin. As an undergraduate at MU, she won the Grace Patton Conant Writing Award two years in a row and the Grace Patton Conant Achievement Award, and now serves as the Director of the Conant Awards Writing Competition.

Prof. Judi Crowe

Shilling 434B
424-6274
jcrowe@mail.millikin.edu

Prof. Mary Dwiggins

Shilling 402D
424-5076
mdwiggins@mail.millikin.edu

Mary Dwiggins (M.A. Eastern Illinois University)
Instructor of English

Mary Dwiggins has a B.A. and M.A. from Eastern Illinois University, and has done graduate work at Illinois State University concentrating in children's literature and narrative theory and 20th century fiction. She teaches Critical Writing, Reading, and Research and children's literature at Millikin.

Her academic interests includes children's literature especially picture books; 20th century fiction especially novels written between 1900-1950; popular culture and its influence and reflection on society, especially through comic books, and hypertext theory and implications for writing. Her current research topics include integrating comic books in the writing curriculum in grades 8-12. She enjoys gardening, writing, and "hanging out" with her husband and three teenage children.

Stephen Frech (Ph.D. University of Cincinnati)
Assistant Professor of English

Co-advisor, Collage, Millikin's literary magazine
Hardy Distinguished Professor of English

Stephen Frech has earned a BA from Northwestern University, MFA from Washington University in St. Louis, and a PhD from the University of Cincinnati. He has published two volumes of poetry: Toward Evening and the Day Far Spent (Kent State University Press) won the 1995 Wick Poetry Chapbook Contest and If Not For These Wrinkles of Darkness won the White Pine Press Poetry Prize, published in 2001. His poems have appeared in the Georgia Review, Pleiades, Florida Review, The Literary Review, and others. He has been the recipient of the Elliston Poetry Writing Fellowship, the Milton Center Post-Graduate Writing Fellowship, and grants from the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation and the Illinois Arts Council.

With a love of literature and the visual arts, Dr. Frech founded Oneiros Press to print limited edition, letter press poetry broadsides, combining poetry and visual image. Poets printed in the series include Albert Goldbarth, Jane Mead, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Ai (available winter 2003). Oneiros Press broadsides have been purchased by special collections libraries at the Newberry Library (Chicago), Valparaiso University Library, and others. The Goldbarth and Mead broadsides won inclusion in Print Magazine’s 2002 Award Annual.

Dr. Stephen Frech

Shilling 434F
362-6473
sfrech@mail.millikin.edu

Dr. Mike George

Shilling 435
362-6465
mgeorge@mail.millikin.edu

Michael George (Ph.D. Michigan State University)
Assistant Professor of English

Acting Director, Critical Writing, Reading & Research

Mike George is a medievalist by training. His dissertation, "'Thou shalt laughen al thy fille': The Comic Body in Medieval English and Scottish Literature and Culture," examines the uses of bodily humor in parodic literature, Piers Plowman, medieval drama, and the poetry of William Dunbar. His research interests are eclectic, ranging from medieval humorous literature to professional writing. He is currently working on projects on medieval letter rhetoric and modern business letters, a Marxist look at Chaucer's Wife of Bath, an ongoing Web project on popular culture in the Middle Ages, and a volume on teaching Anthony Burgess's Clockwork Orange.

He is also a librarian for the World Wide Web Virtual Library History Section, where he administers the medieval history page. He comes to Millikin from an assistant professor position at Ohio Northern University, where in addition to Writing 1, Writing 2, and Great Works, he taught ONU's early literature courses (British Literature 1, Chaucer), grammar, science fiction, and European Literature. His teaching interests include early British literature, science fiction, humor, critical theory, freshman writing, and professional writing. When not pursuing academic pursuits, Mike likes to fish, listen to music, play guitar, practice martial arts, and fiddle with his computer.

Lisa Klotz (Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
Assistant Professor of English

Lisa Klotz completed her Ph.D. in Renaissance literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her dissertation, "Suspicion is No Proof: Legal Proof and Probability in Practice and Fiction in Early Modern England," examines the ways in which legal proof comes under scrutiny in theatrical criminal trials in early seventeenth-century England.

Dr. Klotz also has a B.A. in international relations from the University of California at Davis, a J.D. from the University of San Diego School of Law, and an M.A. in English from California State University, Northridge. After practicing law for several years, she returned to school to earn a Ph.D. and build a new career as a scholar and teacher of Renaissance literature. Her works-in-progress include essays on George Gascoigne's "The Glasse of Governement" and Ben Jonson's "Volpone," and a larger study of the life and works of John Florio.

At Millikin, Dr. Klotz teaches courses in Shakespeare, Renaissance literature, drama, and critical writing.

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Dr. Lisa Klotz

Shilling 434F
425-4699
lklotz@mail.millikin.edu

Dr. Anne Matthews

Shilling 434C
420-6691 ammatthews@mail.millikin.edu

Anne Matthews (Ph.D. Indiana University)
Assistant Professor of English & Professional Writing Tutor

Dr. Matthew’s core mission is to strive for a more just and equitable society by bringing out in students an ethic of care and concern.  She and her students accomplish this together by discussing issues of identity, language, race, class, gender, and sexuality, by reading meaningful texts by writers who grapple with the fundamental questions of personal values, by researching into and reflecting on our communities and our relationship with others, and by writing from the knowledge that we generate, which we can then pass on to the next generation of students.   

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Andy Matthews (M.A. University of Kansas)
Instructor of English

As an adjunct faculty member, he teaches Critical Writing, Reading, and Research courses for Millikin.

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Sandra McKenna

Shilling 416A
420-6654 smckenna@mail.millikin.edu

Sandra McKenna (M.A. University of Illinois - Springfield)
Instructor of English

Advisor, Sigma Tau Delta, English Honorary

Sandra Kuizin McKenna is an instructor of English at Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois. Sandra teaches courses in writing, literature, US studies, global studies and PACE. She holds a Master’s degree in English literature from the University of Illinois at Springfield.

Sandra’s passion for reading and writing began when she was a child, and she has been writing ever since. Sandra has published several short stories and poems in the last fifteen years and is currently working on a poetry collection entitled “The Box of 64” and a memoir about her 16 years as a massage therapist with the working title: “Tales from the Table: Memoirs of a Massage Therapist.” In the summer of 2005 Sandra won two “excellence in writing” awards at the Santa Barbara Writer’s Conference in the areas of Humor and Poetry/Memoir.

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Priscilla Meddaugh (Ph.D. Wayne State University)

Assistant Professor of English & Advisor to the Decaturian

Dr. Meddaugh teaches Critical Writing, Reading, and Research courses and serves as adviser to the Decaturian for Millikin. She brings expertise in journalism and social movements. Ask her about the role of ethnography in journalism.

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Dr. Brian Mihm

Shilling 415
424-6258
bmihm@mail.millikin.edu

Michael O'Conner (Ph.D., University of Missouri-Columbia)
Associate Professor of English, Learning and Technology

Director of the Honors Program
Coordinator of English Education

Michael O'Conner earned his Ph.D. in English from the University of Missouri in Columbia. He also earned his Masters degree in Rhetoric and Composition from UMC and his B.A. in English from Central Methodist College. He taught courses in English at Washington High School in Washington, Missouri for eight years. He has also taught English at the University of Missouri, Central Methodist College, and Columbia College. His interests include American literature, hypertextual theory and writing, composition and rhetoric and popular culture, along with business, technical and professional writing.

He is the Director of the James Millikin Honors Program at Millikin. He is an avid reader of ecological science fiction, a jogger and an author of numerous web pages across the internet, including American Literature On-line. He is also the creator and facilitator of the electronic discussion list, Amlit-L.

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Dr. Michael O'Conner

Shilling 402E
424-5096
moconner@mail.millikin.edu

Megan Woosley (M.A., Southern Illinois University at Carbondale)
Instructor of English & Professional Writing Tutor

As an adjunct faculty member, she teaches Critical Writing, Reading, and Research courses for Millikin. Megan studied Medieval and Nineteenth Century British Literature for her M.A. and completed a fellowship at the National University of Ireland in 2004.

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Megan Woosley

Shilling 416B
424-5078
mwoosley@mail.millikin.edu

Peiling Zhao

Shilling 434D
362-6413
pzhao@mail.millikin.edu

Peiling Zhao (Ph.D. University of South Florida)
Assistant Professor of English

Dr. Peiling Zhao has taught a wide range of English courses ranging from American literature to rhetoric and English as a Second Language. She has a B.A. in English and a master’s degree in American Literature from Central China Normal University where she taught English language skills, English literature, and translation courses to EFL students at Hubei University, China.

While pursuing her doctoral degree in Rhetoric and Composition at University of South Florida, she taught Freshmen Writing, Technical Writing, and Professional Writing. Besides teaching Critical Reading, Writing, and Research, Writing Seminar, and Advanced Writing, she is also teaching EFL Teaching at Millikin. She enjoys teaching with the Blackboard course management learning system.

Dr. Zhao has a diverse interest in research. Her research covers modern American and British fiction, rhetorical theories, international rhetoric, ESL/EFL writing and teaching, composition theories and pedagogy, learning theories, feminisms, cultural studies, postcolonial theories, and teacher training. She successfully defended her dissertation, “Reconstructing Writer Identities, Student Identities, Teacher Identities, and Gender Identities” in the summer of 2005. Currently she is working to turn her dissertation into a book.

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Cindie Zelhart
Office Manager

Cindie Zelhart started at Millikin in August 1995 in the Fine Arts Department and spent time in all three of the fine arts areas (Theatre/Dance, Music, Art). She moved to the English Department in August 1996. She is married and has a son and daughter. In her spare time she enjoys reading and spending time in outdoor activities. She is currently working on a B.A. in English.

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Cindie Zelhart
Office Manager

SH 402A (English Office)
424-6250
czelhart@mail.millikin.edu