Undergraduate Faculty

As a geographer, Becky Catarelli is interested in the countless ways we can "write" the "earth," so that knowledge production involves constructing and inhabiting worlds, a process epitomized by the Marlboro education and its self-directed Plan of Concentration. Becky graduated from Marlboro in 2004 with a Plan on changing gender boundaries in Hanoi, Vietnam, after which she returned to Vietnam to work in conservation for several years. She parlayed this experience into an master's in nature, society, and environmental policy at Oxford University, followed by a doctorate in geography and the environment. Her dissertation work focuses on the Florida Keys, and explores the multiple futures emerging as the low-lying archipelago is confronted with the dual threat of rapidly rising seas and the increasing potential for destruction by a catastrophic hurricane. This work is used in resonance with Becky’s experience during Hurricane Irene, which devastated Vermont in 2011, as well as the persistent interruption brought about by having two children while completing her research, events that draw out the erratic, non-linear temporalities of climate change itself. Becky has a particularly eclectic and interdisciplinary approach to research and writing, employing poetic and photographic methods and drawing heavily on personal experiences to foreground the ways climatic events inhabit the pre-personal, affective dimensions of our worlds, a practice she cultivated in the beautiful hills of Marlboro.

Filmmaker Jay Craven launched the Catamount Arts performing arts program, northern New England’s largest independent arts producer and presenter. Jay creates award-winning films on modest budgets, combining the talents of a regular ensemble with well-known actors like Michael J. Fox, Rip Torn, Ernie Hudson, Treat Williams, Martin Sheen, Kris Kristofferson and Genevieve Bujold. Jay’s awards include the Producers’ Guild of America’s 1995 NOVA Award for most promising new theatrical motion picture producer. His films, such as A Stranger in the Kingdom (1998), The Year that Trembled (2002) and Disappearances (2006), have played at more than 40 festivals, including Sundance. Jay says he likes working with "imaginative students who are ready to try new things and want to get to work."

“A liberal arts education teaches a student how to think critically,” says Marcus, a lens-based artist whose work is concerned with science and exploration in relation to the history of photography. “As such, I operate the classroom as a laboratory where failures can be just as important as successes. Education should not be about the end result, as the process of how we get there is just as important.” Marcus is a graduate of Marlboro College (class of 2010), and received his MFA in studio art from the University of South Florida in 2015. He has teaching experience from the University of South Florida and New College of Florida. Marcus often assumes the role of the amateur scientist in his work in order to investigate photography's historic relationship with science in regards to the notion of the invisible. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at Art Basel Miami, The Center for Fine Art Photography, The Light Factory, Rayko Photo Center of San Francisco, The Center for Photography at Woodstock, and various other galleries and museums, and has also been featured in a variety of publications from Smithsonian Magazine to Wired.

In an age of specialization, Bob acquired an unusually broad-based understanding of the life sciences. From the time he came to Marlboro from the University of California at Santa Barbara, in 1975, to his retirement in 2011, he taught courses ranging from general biology to tropical, marine and desert ecology, and from ornithology to comparative physiology and plant taxonomy. Bob is a strong believer in the liberal arts. "People who understand the history and aspirations of our own species and who can speak to and understand different cultures, will make the largest contributions as life scientists," he says.

Having a long-standing interest in teaching at the undergraduate level, Adam Franklin-Lyons was not drawn to colleges where research is the goal and teaching is secondary. At Marlboro College, he knew he found a place where education was paramount. "The students here are very dedicated," says Adam. "I was surprised at first how curious they are in class. One hopes that students will be, but even the students at great universities aren't always curious." Adam, who got his master's and doctorate degrees in history at Yale, also has degrees in philosophy, musicology and religion, liturgy and the arts.

As a first-generation college student from a working-class family, Jennifer Girouard experienced the transformative power of a Marlboro College education first-hand, graduating in 2001 with a Plan of Concentration in Sociology. She has built on that experience to gain broad training in sociology, with research and teaching interests in political sociology, sociology of culture, law and society, and qualitative methods. “My Marlboro experience taught me the value of intensive class discussions, cross-disciplinary thinking, and individualized attention, lessons that form the backbone of my pedagogy,” says Jennifer.

With eight years of experience tutoring students in Latin and Greek, Ella Grunberger-Kirsh is well equipped to provide an enriched language-learning environment for students of classics at Marlboro. “I have become accustomed to using a wide variety of language-learning resources, and to tailoring teaching strategies to suit individual learning styles,” says Ella, this year’s Oxford Classics Fellow. Ella has her master’s in classics from Exeter College with a dissertation on “Cultural politics and poetic voice in the work of Ausonius of Bordeaux,” which won Oxford’s top classics research prize. She has won several other awards and scholarships for her work, and is founder of the Oxford University Classics Society. She enjoys writing, and contributed articles to Oxford Theatre Review and Cherwell, Oxford’s independent student paper, as well as features for Quadrapheme, a London-based literary magazine. In addition to courses in Latin and Greek, Ella is interested in teaching courses on historical literature and the history of religion. “Since my research interests sit on the cusp between literary studies, early medieval history, theology, and philosophy, I think I would be well placed to support inter-disciplinary collateral work,” she says.

"Recently there has been a lot of talk, in connection with globalization, about the importance of understanding Asia," says Seth Harter. "I couldn’t agree more, but I think that discussions of globalization in the media often promote two misconceptions: first, that global economic interdependence is a recent phenomenon; and second, that globalization has created a culturally homogenous world. One of the greatest contributions that Asian studies can make, in the liberal arts context, is to counter these two misconceptions."

Dance professor Kristin Horrigan knows that a balanced liberal arts education can be greatly enhanced by an exploration of dance, as reflected in her own academic history. Kristin's graduate studies at Ohio State focused the intersection between concert dance and social activism. Her major as an undergraduate at Princeton was actually in chemistry, with a minor in dance. Kristin's broad educational background allows her to provide for students whose academic work is interdisciplinary. She specializes in teaching modern dance, choreography and improvisation, and special topics in dance history and theory.

"I am interested in language & culture and how languages work," said Grant Li, who has a deep appreciation for the fundamental similarities between languages. Grant was born and grew up in the northeast of China, where standard Chinese is spoken. After receiving his Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of California, Irvine, he turned his attention to teaching Chinese. At Marlboro College, Grant teaches all levels of Chinese and theoretical linguistics.

As a teenager in the 1970s, Jim Mahoney taught his calculator to play minesweeper, and he never looked back. As a radio astronomer in the 1980s, he programmed telescopes and modeled galaxies. And in the 1990s, watching the growth of the internet, he set up Marlboro College’s first website. These days Jim tries to connect computer science to various disciplines across the curriculum, including computer music, dance technology, linguistics, digital image and video projects, bioformatics, geographical information systems and scientific data analysis and modeling.

Meg Mott became interested in political theory while working as a court advocate for a battered women’s shelter. Having worked as a paralegal in the 1980s, she was confused by some of the practices emerging in family and criminal courts. "I had been trained to put the burden of proof on the accuser’s testimony, but in family court, the accusers only had to prove they suffered from a reasonable fear," says Meg. "The part of me that was a feminist was delighted to see women’s testimony taken so seriously. The part of me that was a paralegal was worried about the erosion of due process."This same kind of tension fueled her doctoral research on the role of "natural law" in the Spanish Inquisition.

A native of Birmingham, England, math professor Matt Ollis appreciates that Marlboro’s small classes allow him to give close attention to each student’s strengths and weaknesses, from teaching introductory courses to working in an advanced tutorial with a senior. “It has been more interesting teaching here from the start," he says. "Marlboro students are passionate about their work, whether it's someone delving deeply into a very specific math question or making interesting connections to other disciplines."

While she was agraduate student at the University of Southern Illinois, Geraldine helped to establish an undergraduate Honors Program that was roughly equivalent in size to the whole of Marlboro College. "It was there that I experienced the kind of teaching that I prize here at Marlboro: the opportunity to work very closely with a student on a project in which we are both interested," she said.

When Kate Ratcliff was finishing her doctorate in American studies at the University of Minnesota she wanted to find a position where teaching was the institutional priority and where faculty members were encouraged to teach broadly. "My faculty mentors told me the college I dreamed of did not exist," says Kate. "They did not know about Marlboro." Kate's teaching ranges from the Federalist Papers to post–World War II television sitcoms, and she team-teaches courses with colleagues in the visual arts and natural sciences. "The historically informed, interdisciplinary orientation of American studies offers an important counterpoint to the radically ahistorical and decontextualized nature of so much of our contemporary public discourse," she says.

Matan Rubinstein says he thinks of his role as a teacher "primarily as an enabler and facilitator of my students' ideas, providing them with information and my own insight, and encouraging them to attain their own. Above all, I find satisfaction when interacting on the basis of curiosity, passion for ideas and creative connection-making between disparate notions into coherent, reasoned structures."

Matan comes to Marlboro after four years as a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater. He brings a wide range of talents and experiences: he's an accomplished composer of electronic music, a talented and well respected improvising pianist, and a scholar with a wide background in music theory and history. And he is a passionate teacher with wide interdisciplinary interests.

"I think that Marlboro is the perfect environment for my teaching career," says Sara Salimbeni. "The wide range of physics topics I need to teach is a welcome challenge. I feel particularly comfortable working with small groups of students and in a one to one setting. This is the most effective environment to share my knowledge, skills and experiences with students. Each day that I spend at Marlboro I learn something as a teacher and as a human being, and I believe that this has a strong, positive effect on my teaching."

Teaching art as part of a liberal education, as well as a discipline of its own, is important to Tim Segar. This has led him to teach courses both across the arts, collaborating with music and theater faculty, and with teachers of history, anthropology and poetry. His teaching reflects the work he does in his own studio insofar as he spends a roughly equal time working in two and three dimensions. "The teaching of drawing is a partner to the teaching of sculpture. While sculpture proceeds slowly and technically, drawing can more nimbly seek ideas and forms."

"Some background in chemistry and biochemistry is useful to all of us," says Todd Smith. "For example current debates about genetic engineering and genetically-modified foods, and the arguments for and against them, can be quite technical. The same is true for concerns about pesticides and their effects on human health. If students have exposure to ideas in chemistry they are better prepared to evaluate the information they’re bombarded with. We get to see on a daily basis why it’s relevant." Todd teaches courses in chemistry, biochemistry, human physiology, and molecular biology, while working with students in tutorials on topics ranging from avian physiology to Alzheimer’s disease and neuronal function.

Neal brings a diverse array of talents and passions to Expedition Education Institute (EEI). He loves to teach to empower, inspire, and strengthen his students. He enjoys bringing creativity into the learning as well as engaging in his own creative pursuits (e.g., writing and performing educational spoken word pieces). Being fully engaged in a transformative learning community brings joy to Neal’s heart and mind. 

With a doctorate in ecology from University of California, Davis, Neal served as a faculty member for the Audubon Expedition Institute, starting in 2005. In 2010 he joined the team of former AEI faculty/alumni/staff to found the Expedition Education Institute (EEI), a rebirth of the traveling bus programs now in partnership with Marlboro College. He currently serves on the board of trustees for EEI. Prior to joining AEI, Neal thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail and taught wildlife ecology and statistics courses at the University of Maine, where he also did statistical consulting. He was co-principal investigator on a two-year study of the ecology and behavior of the gray hay, and assisted with ornithology and vertebrate zoology courses at Colby College. 

Neal is well-read, thoughtful, and articulate in his expressions. He has a gift of conveying complex ideas in clear and easy to understand manner because he is able and willing and has the patience to think through the complexity to reach the clarity. Neal inspires students to be open, to practice critical thinking, and to bring their best selves to the learning community and to appreciate their own gifts that they carry with them. Neal’s knowledge is both deep and wide: from theories of education to politics and environmental issues, evolution to economics, and contemplative practices to critical inquiry and reflection. He is an avid birder and expert ultimate frisbee player.

A graduate of Marlboro College, class of 1977, Lindy Whiton has already had a long and fruitful career in teaching writing and literacy. She received her doctorate in literacy and education from University of Massachusetts Amherst and founded The Literacy Project, Inc., a nonprofit organization devoted to adult literacy in western Massachusetts, where she served as executive director until 1988. “I have adored teaching adults to read and write about government, economics, and art,” said Lindy. “I have built curricula that excited non-readers about their world and their own creativity.” She has developed several programs to help transition students into college and has done extensive training and advising for Massachusetts’ System for Adult Basic Education Support, The Food Bank of Western Massachusetts, Holyoke Community College, and Greenfield Community College. Lindy is currently working on a book on adoption, highlighting the experience of original mothers. She also has a business selling her photography.