Stetson Faculty Awarded Tenure and Promotion

Palm Court and Holler Fountain

Sixteen members of Stetson University’s faculty have recently earned tenure and/or promotion. The new status for these faculty will be effective August 2019 with the start of the 2019-20 academic year.

portrait outside
Noel Painter, Ph.D.

“I am extraordinarily proud of the accomplishments of these newly-promoted and tenured faculty,” said Provost Noel Painter. “Their unwavering commitment to teaching excellence, dedication to advancing the work of their discipline through scholarship and creative activity, and their leadership at the University are excellent examples of Stetson’s mission in action – a wonderful education, a transformational experience, values-oriented learning, and preparation to lead lives of significance.”

The faculty earning tenure and/or promotion include:

Christopher Bell, Ph.D.

• Christopher Bell, Ph.D.: Tenured, Promoted to Associate Professor
Bell joined the Stetson faculty in 2013 and teaches courses in Asian religious traditions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism, and Shinto. His research interests concern Tibetan demonology, as well as the worship of gods and spirits across Asia, and he frequently conducts fieldwork in Tibet, China, and India.

Pamela Cappas-Toro, Ph.D.

• Pamela Cappas-Toro, Ph.D.: Tenured, Promoted to Associate Professor
Cappas-Toro teaches Spanish language, Latin American and Caribbean literatures and cultures, and Latino/a studies. Her passion for social justice, community engagement scholarship and commitment to undergraduate education guide her efforts as the co-founder and co-director of the Community Education Project, a liberal arts higher education in prison initiative based in Florida since 2015.

portrait of Roslyn Crowder
Roslyn Crowder, Ph.D.

• Roslyn Crowder, Ph.D.: Tenured, Promoted to Associate Professor
Crowder joined the Stetson faculty in 2013 and currently serves as the Molecular Biology Program Coordinator. She is a molecular cancer biologist with interest in cell death pathways, and her undergraduate research program examines anticancer properties of plant compounds.

Mayhill Fowler, Ph.D.

• Mayhill Fowler, Ph.D.: Tenured, Promoted to Associate Professor
Fowler is Associate Professor in the Department of History and has served as director of SPREES, Stetson’s Program in Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, since 2017. She has presented and published widely on theater, film, and the relationship between arts and politics in Ukraine, and she is thrilled to be a Fulbright Research Scholar in Ukraine for the 2019-2020 academic year.

• Krista Franco, M.F.A: Tenured, Promoted to Associate Professor
Franco joined the faculty in 2013, and acts as Resident Designer and Production Manager for Stetson’s Second Stage Theatre, mentoring students in leadership roles and production related practice.  

Melinda Hall, Ph.D.

• Melinda Hall, Ph.D.: Tenured, Promoted to Associate Professor
Hall is an Associate Professor of Philosophy, and specializes in bioethics, Continental philosophy, and the philosophy of disability. She is the co-director of the Community Education Project, Stetson’s higher education in prison program. She also coordinates the blog BIOPOLITICAL PHILOSOPHY with Shelley Tremain.

Matt Hurst, Ph.D.

 • Matthew Hurst, Ph.D.: Tenured, Promoted to Associate Professor
Hurst came to Stetson in 2012, and has taught investments, real estate and corporate financial management. His research focuses on classical Finance questions applied to specific asset classes, such as real estate and municipal bonds. Additionally, he investigates the unintended consequences of financial regulation and its impact on corporate governance.

Nicole Mottier, Ph.D.

• Nicole Mottier, Ph.D.: Tenured, Promoted to Associate Professor
An Associate Professor of History, Mottier offers many courses on Latin America and is developing courses on capitalism and food history. Her previous research on twentieth-century Mexico analyzed the history of microfinance and her current book project historicizes drug cartels.

Mary Ellen Oslick, Ph.D.

• Mary Ellen Oslick, Ph.D.: Tenured, Promoted to Associate Professor
Oslick is an Associate Professor of literacy and reading in the Department of Education, and teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in reading methods, children’s literature, and critical literacy practices throughout the content areas. Her research areas of interest include: social justice and critical literacy applications; multicultural children’s literature; and reading and writing instruction with diverse learners.

portrait
Jelena Petrovic

• Jelena Petrovic, Ph.D.: Tenured, Promoted to Associate Professor
Petrovic is an Associate Professor of communication and media studies and one of the founders and co-directors of Community Education Project, a higher education in prison program in Tomoka Correctional Institution. She came to Stetson in 2013 and is currently teaching courses in intercultural communication, media studies, immigration and criminalization.

Joshua Rust,  Ph.D.

• Joshua Rust,  Ph.D.: Promoted to Professor
Rust is chair of the philosophy department, and publications in his area of specialty of social ontology include “Institutional Identity” in The Journal of Social Ontology (forthcoming) and “Traditional Action and Traditional Authority” in Max Weber Studies (2019). He is presently exploring the limits of Max Weber’s suggestion that our institutions are usefully compared to machines or instruments that help us solve cooperation and coordination problems (with varying degrees of effectiveness).

portrait
Stacey-Rae Simcox, J.D.

• Stacey-Rae Simcox, J.D.: Tenured, Promoted to Professor, College of Law
Simcox is a Professor of Law and Director of Stetson’s Veterans’ Law Institute and Veterans’ Advocacy Clinic. She teaches in the areas of veterans’ benefits law, administrative law, trusts and estates, and legal skills. Professor Simcox helped establish a unique medical-legal partnership between Stetson University College of Law and the University of South Florida’s Morsani College of Medicine which allows medical students and faculty to collaborate with law students and faculty for the benefit of disabled veterans.

Sven Smith, Ph.D.

• Sven Smith, J.D., Ph.D.: Tenured, Promoted to Associate Professor
Smith is an Associate Professor in the department of Sociology and Anthropology. He graduated from Stetson and joined Stetson University’s faculty originally as an adjunct in 2003. Smith has taught courses, colloquia, and tutorials for several different programs at Stetson. His most developed lines of research involves Weberian study of judge, professional behavior and the intersection of law and social learning theory.

Page Thanasiu, Ph.D.

• Page Thanasiu, Ph.D.: Tenured, Promoted to Associate Professor
Thanasiu joined the Stetson’s Counselor Education faculty as a Visiting Assistant Professor in 2008. Since then, she has been a program coordinator and, most recently, the director of Stetson’s Play Therapy Certificate program. Page teaches and advises Stetson graduate students within the Clinical Mental Health Counseling and the Marriage, Couple, and Family Counseling programs.

Joe Woodside, D.B.A.

• Joseph Woodside, D.B.A: Tenured, Promoted to Associate Professor
Woodside is an Associate Professor of Business Systems and Analytics in the School of Business Administration.  He teaches undergraduate, graduate, and executive courses on business analytics, health analytics and informatics, business analysis, information systems technology, and data visualization. 

John York, Ph.D.

• John York, Ph.D.: Promoted to Professor
York joined the Department of Chemistry at Stetson in 2007 and has since pursued an active research agenda in computational bioinorganic and organometallic chemistry. While his area of expertise is inorganic chemistry, he also teaches courses ranging from introductory general chemistry and first-year seminar to advanced topics like organic structure analysis and biological inorganic chemistry.