Nine new faculty members are joining TC in the fall-three in the Department of Arts and Humanities, two in Health and Behavior Studies, one in Counseling and Clinical Psychology, one in International and Transcultural Studies, one in Curriculum and Teaching, and one in Organization and Leadership.

In addition, Peter Coleman, who has been at TC as Research Assistant Professor of Psychology and Education, will be re-appointed to a three-year tenure track term as Assistant Professor of Psychology and Education in the Department of Organization and Leadership. Also, Gregory Hamilton, who was on a one-year term appointment as Assistant Professor of English Education, will be re-appointed to a three-year tenure track term in the Department of Arts and Humanities.

Those who arrive with the new semester include:
James Albright, Assistant Professor of English Education in the Department of Arts and Humanities. Albright comes to TC from Pennsylvania State University, where he was a graduate assistant while completing his doctoral studies in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. There he taught courses in English Language Arts Methods and Adolescent Literature. Earlier, he taught elementary, middle, and high school levels. Research interests, Albright says, include looking at literate identities from a critical and cultural studies perspective and rethinking English as literacy education. The reflexive sociology of Pierre Bourdieu is another area Albright is exploring. He received his B.A. from Trent University in Ontario, his B.Ed. from Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, and his M.A. in Literacy Education from Mount Saint Vincent University in Nova Scotia.

Gregory Anderson, Assistant Professor of Education in the Department of Organization and Leadership. Anderson was a Minority Postdoctoral Fellow at TC last year, looking at the issue of compensatory education in CUNY and comparing it to the program at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa, where he did his dissertation research. Prior to coming to TC last year, Anderson received his Ph.D. in Sociology from City University of New York Graduate School and University Center, with a B.A. and M.A. in Sociology from the University of Toronto. He also worked as a research advocacy specialist for the Community Service Society of New York's Education Policy Unit. (His background was described in more detail in the August, 1998, issue of Inside TC. See it on the Web http://www.tc.columbia.edu/newsbureau).

George Bonanno, Assistant Professor of Psychology and Education in the Department of Counseling and Clinical Psychology. As an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the Catholic University of America, Bonanno has done research and written extensively on coping with bereavement. His research on laughter as a tool for coping with grief was recently highlighted in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Also, he recently explored facial expressions of emotion, consequences of self-deceptive enhancement, and emotional scaffolding in the psychotherapy of a traumatized child. Outside of his field, Bonanno has exhibited his own paintings and pastels at Connecticut galleries and has written music and concert reviews for Scene magazine in Washington, DC. He received his B.A. from Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, and his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Yale University.

Zhao Hong Han, Assistant Professor of Languages and Education in the Department of Arts and Humanities. Han was educated and taught at colleges and universities around the world. She comes to TC from Georgia State University in Atlanta, where she was teaching English. Prior to that she taught English in China, Italy and London, and taught Chinese in Norway. In addition to her teaching of languages and linguistics, Han has experience interpreting and translating at the various universities where she was affiliated. She is interested in examining the areas of second language acquisition theory and processes and second language pedagogy. Han's published writing includes research relating to linguistics, language teaching and experimenting with uncertainty. She received her B.A. from Central China Normal University, an M.A. in Linguistics and Applied Linguistics from Guang Zhou Institute of Foreign Languages in Canton, China, an M.A. in TESOL from Moray House Institute of Education at Herior-Watt University in Edingburgh, UK, and a Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition from Birkbeck College at the University of London. Han also studied contemporary Italian literature at the University of Trieste in Italy.

Lawrence Haruo Kushi, the Ella McCollum Valteich Professor of Nutrition Education in the Department of Health and Behavior Studies. Most recently, Kushi has been at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, where he was an Assistant Professor and then Associate Professor in the Division of Epidemiology and was a Member in the University of Minnesota Cancer Center. In his research, he has looked at the connection between food and vitamin intake and disease, particularly cancer. He is currently working on a study that explores the relationship between the distribution of body fat and other dietary factors to incidence of breast and female reproductive cancers. Kushi received an A.B. at Amherst College, and an Sc.D. from the Harvard School of Public Health. He was an American Heart Association Fellow at a 10-day seminar on Epidemiology and Prevention of Cardiovascular Diseases as well as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health.

Henry M. Levin, the William Heard Kilpatrick Professor of Economics and Education in the Department of International and Transcultural Studies. Levin, a nationally recognized expert in education economics, comes to us for a second time from Stanford University, where he was the David Jacks Professor of Higher Education and Economics. In 1997 he was Visiting Professor at TC and was the Julius and Rosa Sachs Lecturer. He is a specialist in the economics of education and human resources and has published 14 books and nearly 300 articles. Levin's Accelerated Schools Project is an example of how he has put theory into practice. The program has been adopted by some 1,000 elementary and secondary schools across the United States and internationally. At TC he also heads the newly formed National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education, which will explore topics such as vouchers, charter schools and other privatization issues and will provide information to lawmakers, educators and the general public in a non-partisan fashion.

Kathleen O'Connell, the Isabel Maitland Stewart Professor of Nursing Education in the Department of Health and Behavior Studies. O'Connell joins TC having been a Professor at the University of Kansas School of Nursing since 1992, where much of her research has focused on smoking cessation, psychological reversals, and motivations for health behavior. She also studied regulation of Type II diabetes. A member of numerous health related boards, she has published extensively on the areas of her research. O'Connell received her B.S. N. from the College of Mount St. Joseph-on-the-Ohio, and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Kansas. She was also a postdoctoral fellow at Purdue University.

Rebecca Oxford, Professor of Languages and Education in the Department of Arts and Humanities. Coming to TC from the University of Alabama where she served as a Professor and Associate Dean of the College of Education, Oxford will serve as Coordinator of TC's Program in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). The focus of her research is on foreign language learning and second language acquisition as well as motivation, anxiety, learning styles and learning strategies. Assessment and quantitative and qualitative research methods are some of her additional scholarly interests. Oxford has acted as a consultant to numerous universities, international organizations, private corporations, state agencies, professional organizations and school districts to develop seminars, tests, and computer-assisted instruction. She has also conducted major educational research and evaluation projects for the U.S. government, and was involved in worldwide program evaluation of the Army Basic Skills Program.

Betty Lou Whitford, Director of NCREST and Professor of Education in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching. Whitford began her career in education as a high school social studies teacher in Virginia Beach, Virginia. She was involved in conducting workshops on teaching techniques for National Science Foundation institutes and eventually moved into research and academia. Prior to her appointment at TC, she was a member of the graduate faculty at University of Louisville, and taught there for almost 20 years. She facilitated projects and conducted research on professional development schools, and has taught curriculum, research methods and school restructuring. Whitford's recent publications focus on assessment and accountability, the effect of high stakes testing on teaching and learning, teacher education reform through professional development schools, and collaborative teacher education. Whitford received her A.B., M.A.T., and Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Published Tuesday, Sep. 18, 2001