Faculty Fellows
Appalachian’s administration is strongly committed to diversity, offering strong support to various initiatives. Students learn best in diverse educational environments; therefore, central to the depth and quality of intellectual life at Appalachian is recruiting and retaining a diverse faculty. A diverse faculty attracts a diverse student body, thus enriching all learning, working, and social interactions and preparing students to thrive in an increasingly diverse world. One significant step that Appalachian took to recruit and retain a more diverse was instating the Faculty Fellows Program, first introduced in 1993, but formally launched in a campus-wide initiative in 2002, in conjunction with the establishment of the Office of Diversity (now the Office of Equity, Diversity and Compliance).
Current Faculty Fellows
E. Ike Udogu
E. Ike Udogu is a full professor in the Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice. He earned his BA in political science from Appalachian State University and both the M.A. and Ph.D. from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.
Dr. Udogu joined the faculty of political science and criminal justice as a faculty fellow in 2003. He teaches international relations and comparative politics with special emphasis in international relations and African politics.
Since joining the faculty, he has published several books, book chapters, book reviews and articles. He has also co-authored works with graduate students in the department.
Dr. Udogu is the recipient of several athletics and scholarly awards including, but not limited to, NCAA All-American soccer player; Inductee, Appalachian State University Hall of Fame; Who’s Who in American Education; National Endowment for the Humanities; 2000 Outstanding Scholars of the 21st Century Award.
He is the current president of the Association of Third World Studies, Inc.
Calvin Hall
Calvin L. Hall is an assistant professor and faculty fellow in the Department of Communication at Appalachian State University. He earned a Ph. D. in mass communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2004. Research interests include the function of mass communication in society in the areas of race, class, gender, and culture, as well as history, literary journalism, and scholastic journalism. He currently teaches introductory journalism, feature writing and editing, layout and design courses at Appalachian State.
Born and raised in Asheville, N. C., Hall holds BA and MA degrees in English (creative writing concentration) from N.C. State University.He taught English and journalism at Asheville High School, where, during his time as newspaper adviser, student journalists under his direction won numerous awards. He was also one of the many advisers featured in the book Death by Cheeseburger: High School Journalism in the 1990's and Beyond, published by the Freedom Forum in Washington, D. C.
Hall was formerly the director of student publications at St. Augustine’s College in Raleigh and a faculty member at N.C. State and at N.C. Central Universities in Durham. His credits as reviewer include American Journalism, the journal of the American Journalism Historians Association, and for the Association for Educators in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). He continues to serve as instructor for the Summer Scholastic Journalism Institute of the North Carolina Scholastic Media Association (NCSMA), an organization headquartered at the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
He has participated in “Diversity Across the Curriculum,” a seminar sponsored by the Poynter Institute, a school for journalists, future journalists, and teachers of journalists. In summer 2005, Hall was one of 20 journalism professors selected to work at a daily newspaper as a fellow of the Institute for Journalism Excellence, an intensive program sponsored by the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation whose goal was to strengthen ties between journalism educators and newspaper editors.
In 2005, Hall was elected to the board of directors of the North Carolina Humanities Council and is a member of the American Journalism Historians Association (AJHA), the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASAALH), and the National Communication Association (NCA).
Rachel S. Shinnar
Rachel S. Shinnar became a faculty fellow and an assistant professor at Appalachian State University's Walker College of Business Department of Management in 2004. She holds Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in hotel administration from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) and a bachelor’s degree in French literature and general humanities from the Tel Aviv University in Tel Aviv, Israel. Born and raised in Israel, she has extensive international work experience and speaks five languages: English, Spanish, French, German, and Hebrew.
Her research interests focus on cross-cultural issues and the careers and work-life experiences of Hispanic immigrants, including entrepreneurship. As a faculty fellow, Dr. Shinnar has been actively involved with the local Hispanic community in the Boone area as an ESL tutor and a volunteer healthcare interpreter. She is especially proud of coordinating the “Day of the Dead” exhibit over the last three years, engaging Appalachian State University students and faculty alongside Hispanic and other community members in putting together this event.
Chishimba Nathan Mowa
Chishimba Mowa is a native of Zambia (Southern Africa). He obtained his veterinary degree from the University of Zambia, Lusaka, Zambia, and later got his masters of veterinary medicine and Ph.D. from Glasgow University, Glasgow, Scotland, and Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan, respectively. He then did a postdoctoral fellowship in the department of neurobiology, at the Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine, Rootstown, OH, where he was later appointed as a research instructor. Mowa joined the Department of Biology at Appalachian State University as an assistant professor and faculty fellow in July 2005.
Dr. Mowa’s broad research interests involve male and female reproduction, specifically the role of estrogen (plus plant estrogens) in the development of male external genitalia, and mechanisms that underlie the birth process. At ASU he has been involved in teaching endocrinology (Hormones in Action) and physiology. To complement his teaching, Dr. Mowa has numerous scientific publications to his credit, including more than 20 peer review manuscripts.
He serves on several university committees and is involved in community outreach programs, including but not limited to being a member of Appalachian’s McNair Grant Task Force, the Faculty Fellows Advisory Board, the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, as well as serving as the advisor for the African Student Association. He was selected as one of twenty participants to receive a national scholarship to attend the 2007, six week-intensive, summer laboratory and lecture course, Frontiers in Reproduction, at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, MA. The lectures and labs are taught by 30-40 leading investigators in the different areas of reproductive biology, and the MBL has a rich tradition and history of training experimental biologists.
Xiaorong Shao
Xiaorong Shao works as a cataloger and reference librarian in the Belk Library and Information Commons at ASU. She earned an MLS degree in information and library science from Clarion University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Shao obtained a master’s degree from the University of Reading, UK, and a doctorate from Pennsylvania State University in agricultural education with a concentration in curriculum and instruction. Her bachelor’s degree, received from Northwest Agricultural University in China, is in soil science and chemistry.
Dr. Shao came to ASU as a faculty fellow in 2006, and her research and teaching interests are curriculum and instruction, international and diversity education. She is also interested in teaching statistics and research methods in the social and behavioral sciences. Currently, she is serving on several committees including the ASU International Education Council and the Library Diversity Committee.
Kin-Yan Szeto
Kin-Yan Szeto is an assistant professor of theatre and dance, with a Ph.D. in performance studies awarded by Northwestern University. She was born in Hong Kong and received her education in Hong Kong, Mainland China, the United Kingdom and the United States. Her teaching and research interests include film and performance studies, performance of literature, postcolonial and global studies, and gender and ethnicity in transnational contexts.
As a scholar and teacher, Szeto has continually integrated interdisciplinary perspectives and methodologies in her work and teaching. Articles she has published or that are in press in China, Taiwan and the United States also reveal her interests in performance studies as well as in gender, ethnic, postcolonial and transnational theories.
At ASU, she has expanded her repertoire to include material that relates to her research or is completely new. Szeto, along with other ASU faculty, is developing a moving image minor program in the Department of Theatre and Dance. This program will emphasize the connections between technology and live performance, and will provide a learning environment to engage students in the process, practice and productions of the moving image. It will facilitate exploration of the relationship between new media and performance and their value in the 21st century.
As a faculty fellow at ASU, Szeto is also very excited to direct an English translation of Stan Lai’s Pining…in Peach Blossom Land in Valborg Theatre in April 2008. Pining… in Peach Blossom Land is a landmark piece for contemporary Chinese theatre. What happens in a meta-theatrical collage of the Mainland and Taiwan is a meeting point of modern Chinese politics. The production at ASU will involve students, staff and faculty across various disciplines. Szeto will explore the cultural and historical meanings related to adapting the play for audiences at ASU. She will make use of her specialty in Asian theatre and performance to assist in advancing the university’s goal of enhancing appreciation and understanding of diversity among university employees and students.
Ryan Emanuel
Dr. Emanuel is a Lumbee Indian from North Carolina who earned a B.S. in Geology from Duke University before relocating to Virginia for several years for work and graduate study. He received a M.S. and Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences from the University of Virginia, where he studied carbon and water cycles in Virginia and Montana. Prior to joining the faculty at Appalachian this fall, Dr. Emanuel worked as a postdoctoral research associate at Duke’s Center on Global Change, extracting information on topography and vegetation from high-resolution laser altimetry (lidar) data collected over North Carolina. Dr. Emanuel’s research in the areas of hydrology and land-atmosphere interaction has shown that agricultural fields continue to act as significant sources of atmospheric carbon dioxide even after they have been abandoned, and that terrestrial carbon and water fluxes are intimately linked to soil moisture and water stress across a broad range of terrestrial environments. His work has broad implications for the availability of groundwater and surface water resources, and how these resources may vary in response to climate change.
Nina Sun Eidsheim
Nina Sun Eidsheim joined the vibrant group of Faculty Fellows and the Faculty of the Hayes School of Music Fall in 2007. She holds a M.F.A. in Vocal Performance from the California Institute of the Arts and will soon receive a Ph.D. in Critical Studies and Experimental Practices from the University of California, San Diego. Born in South Korea, adopted to Norway, and residing and working in the Appalachian Mountains, Eidsheim is proud to be a citizen of the world. In addition to English and German, she speaks Norwegian and the other Scandinavian languages. However, the accomplishment she is most proud of is the establishment of many relationships with performers, musicians, composers, and thinkers over the years.
Her research focuses on the examination of the cultural, historical and social contingent interpretations of the meaning of the timbre, or simply the sound, of the human singing voice in both classical and popular music. She is also dedicated to curriculum development and mentoring. This spring two ASU students will receive fellowships funded by the National Geographic to teach Eidsheim’s Mapping the Beat, a geography-through-music curriculum.
Excerpts from Faculty Fellows Job Description
The Faculty Fellows Program offers a tenure track position to qualified individuals who hold an appropriate terminal degree, a record of or evidence of potential for teaching, scholarship, and service, and a strong commitment to promoting diversity within a university community. Particularly encouraged to apply are candidates with life experiences unique to underrepresented student and faculty populations at Appalachian. Fellows are expected to assume a leadership role in the university by serving as mentor/role models to students, developing and participating in programs and projects designed to foster a greater consciousness of diversity within the university community, serving with other fellows on the ASU Faculty Fellows Advisory Committee with the associate vice chancellor for diversity, equity and compliance, and assisting in advancing the university’s goal of enhancing appreciation and understanding of diversity among university employees and students. Such activity will be considered valuable service to the university and will be recognized and valued within the department where the fellow holds his or her appointment.
