Seven members of Stetson University’s faculty have recently earned tenure and/or promotion. The new status for these faculty members will be effective August 2014, with the start of the 2014-15 academic year.

“The heart of the academic enterprise is led by Stetson’s outstanding faculty,” said Provost Elizabeth Paul, who made the announcement. “Stetson’s learning community is enriched by teacher-scholar faculty who inspire a love of lifelong learning in our students at the same time they are vibrant lifelong learners themselves. The seven faculty whom the University is recognizing exemplify this distinctive commitment. We celebrate their accomplishments, inspiration and impact.”

Jason Bent – Promotion to Associate Professor of Law Professor Bent joined the College of Law in 2011 and teaches in the areas of employment law and civil procedures.  His scholarly interests include systemic theories of employment discrimination, workplace safety regulation, and law and economics.  His recent articles have been selected for publication in the Ohio State Law Journal, the Denver University Law Review, the Tennessee Law Review and the Michigan Journal of Law Reform.  Bent graduated magna cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School, where he served as notes editor of the Michigan Law Review and was a member of the Order of the Coif. Following law school, he served as judicial clerk to Judge Cornelia Kennedy of the U. S. Court of Appeals for the 6^th Circuit and Judge Joan B. Gottschall of the U. S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. In private practice he became a principal and shareholder of Smith & Bent P. C., where he practiced employment law and environmental litigation.

Ramee Indralingam – Promotion to Professor of Chemistry Dr. Indralingam holds a Ph.D. in analytical chemistry from the University of Florida and has a B.S. in chemistry from the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. Her research interests include innovative experiential learning of chemical principles and analysis of exotic spices for their flavor compounds. Her teaching includes General Chemistry I and II, Analytical Chemistry and Instrumental Analysis. Indralingam has published extensively in the Journal of Chemical Education and Chemical Educator.

Daniel Plante – Promotion to Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science Professor Plante holds a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Notre Dame, and M.E. in Computer Science from North Carolina State University and a B.S. in Physics from Marlboro College. He enjoys teaching and working with students on research projects that cover the broader areas of web application development, software engineering, mobile application development, artificial intelligence, computational science and security. Plante also enjoys crossing disciplinary boundaries and collaborating with students and faculty in mathematics, business, economics and other fields which require a computational approach. He believes students learn best by actively performing tasks associated with the material covered in class rather than passively listening during a lecture. His classes tend to require students to directly engage during class by working through problems, designs and development of software.

Mark Powell – Awarded tenure and promotion to Associate Professor of English Mark Powell, M.F.A., an author, has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Breadloaf Writers’ Conference, the Collegeville Center for Ecumenical Research and the Vaclav Havel fellowship in playwriting to the Prague Seminar. Powell has won a Fulbright Scholarship Award for 2014-15, allowing him to teach at Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra in the country of Slovakia. He has served as a craft class instructor at the Breadloaf and on the faculty of the Appalachian Writers’ Conference. For the past three years he has taught a fiction workshop at Lawtey Correctional Institution, a level II prison in Raiford, FL. His fiction, essays and reviews have appeared in a number of journals, including Still, Ellipsis, Rivendell, the New Delta Review, Appalachian Heritage, American Polymath, the South Carolina Review and Yemassee.  He was the featured artist in the winter 2012 issue of Appalachian Heritage, in which two excerpts from The Dark Corner, as well as a critical appraisal of his previous work appears. Powell holds an M.A.R. from Yale Divinity School, an M.F.A. from the University of South Carolina and a B.A. from The Citadel.

Ciara Torres-Spelliscy – Promotion to Associate Professor of Law Professor Torres-Spelliscy teaches courses in Election Law, Corporate Governance, and Constitutional Law. Prior to joining Stetson’s faculty, she was counsel in the Democracy Program of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law where she provided guidance on the issues of money in politics and the judiciary to state and federal lawmakers. She researches and speaks publicly on campaign finance law as well as judicial selection. In 2013, Torres-Spelliscy was named as a member of the Lawyers of Color’s “50 Under 50” list of minority law professors making an impact in legal education. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the National Institute on Money in State Politics and a Brennan Center Fellow.  She holds a J.D. from Columbia School of Law and an A.B. from Harvard University.

Thomas Vogel – Awarded tenure and promotion to Associate Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science Dr. Vogel holds a Ph.D. in mathematics; M.S. in applied mathematics, and B.S. in mathematics from the University of Central Florida. He also holds a B.S. in physics from UCF. His research interests include differential equations, mathematical physics and dynamical systems. Vogel currently teaches Calculus I and II, Partial Differential Equations, Great Ideas in Mathematics, and Ordinary Differential Equations. In May 2011 he received the First Year Student Advocate Award for his support of first year students at Stetson University. Vogel’s latest publication, “Establishing the Onset, and Parameter and Spatial Domains of Chaos in a Smooth Quadratic Autonomous System Using Sil’nikov Criteria and Competitive Mode Analysis” was published in Discontinuity, Nonlinearity, and Complexity.

Matt Wilson – Awarded tenure and promoted to Associate Professor of Sport Business Dr. Wilson holds an Ed.D. from the University of Georgia and has worked in higher education since 1998. His research area focuses on issues in intercollegiate athletics. His work has been presented at several international conferences, published in professional journals as well as documented in media outlets including Time Magazine, USA Today, and Inside Higher Education. Wilson has several years of practical sport management work experience in intercollegiate athletics, the 1996 Summer Olympic Games and Augusta National Golf Club. He teaches Introduction to Sport Business and Social and Ethical Issues in Sport.