Eberly College of Arts and Sciences professors Michele Stephens and Thomas Sura have been named 2015 recipients of the Riggle Fellowship in the Humanities.
The fellowship supports exceptional junior faculty members who are seeking tenure through innovative research, effective teaching and other creative endeavors. It offers a $5,000 summer salary award and is awarded by the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences Research and Graduate Studies Committee.
“The Eberly College is fortunate to have the Riggle fund to support important work by newer humanities faculty,” said Rudolph Almasy, recently retired dean of the Eberly College. “Dr. Stephens’ work is exciting, and we are pleased that the college can help her move forward in her research. Tom Sura’s work is also exciting and especially timely with WVU’s interest in, and support of, veterans studying at WVU.”
Stephens is an assistant professor in the Department of History. After spending two weeks with study abroad students, Stephens will journey to Mexico, including visiting Guadalajara, where she will access previously unavailable resources and research materials for an upcoming book release. Stephens’ research is following the indigenous group known as the Huicholes.
The Huicholes have managed to hold on to their culture in the face of oppressive Spanish colonialism and the Mexican government. Despite the assumptions that indigenous people have a “cohesive” identity, the Huicholes can vary across towns and regions. Their success of maintaining that identity, Stephens says, comes from them cherry picking what elements of the different cultures the group has incorporated.
Stephens’ teaching fields include colonial and modern Latin America, indigenous peoples of Latin America, the history of Mexico, and race and gender in Latin America. She received her Ph.D. from the University Oklahoma in 2011 and her master’s degree from California State University in 2004.
“This has been such a great opportunity,” Stephens said. “Since I’ve been (at Eberly) I’ve had so much support from the Dean’s office and also at the University level. I’m really pleased and honored.”
Sura is an assistant professor in the Department of English and the coordinator of the undergraduate writing program. In his position, he coordinates and develops writing class curricula for the department’s graduate teaching assistants.
With his Riggle fellowship, Sura is developing a program that will improve the quality of English writing education for student veterans. Sura said he hopes to develop strategies to make courses more ‘veteran friendly’ – and also define what that means for an effective education.
As more veterans come to campus to seek an education and pursue degrees, their needs may differ from those of a traditional student, with deployment and other training requirements taking them away from the classroom.
In the 2014-2015 academic year, WVU had 912 student veterans enrolled in classes, up from 563 in 2000. A total of 271 were enrolled in Eberly College of Arts and Sciences classes.
“Part of what we want our instructors to see is the value these veterans can bring, and understand and respect them,” Sura said. “Knowing tangible things to do, and not do, when working with student veterans contributes to our diversity. If you can understand and engage them, and give them opportunities to contribute, I think everybody benefits from that.”
Sura is currently offering a “micro-curriculum” of workshops, panels, and writing activities for graduate teaching assistants to identify what works, what doesn’t, and what effect the training has on student veteran success.
-WVU-
dr/7/2/2015
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