Undergraduate Faculty

"You can't grow as a writer, or as a reader really, unless you're willing to take risks," says Gloria Biamonte, who teaches both writing and literature. Gloria's background in 19th and 20th century women's literature and popular culture enriches her own writing interests and her classes at Marlboro. "I am really grateful that here I get to do both things I love. They inform each other so much." She likes working with students who are curious, and also those who are tentative but really want to go someplace with their writing.

Growing up in a rural town in Mexico's Jalisco state gave Rosario de Swanson a unique perspective as a student of Spanish American literature. Studying the culture she grew up in while living in the U.S. made her more aware of contradictions and forced her to confront ideas that she had never questioned. Rosario considers the study of Spanish as highly relevant, even in rural Vermont. "Perhaps we have not been the best of neighbors, but the stories of Americans and Latin Americans are tied, historically and otherwise. There are also so many people in the U.S. of Hispanic descent that knowing about their language, their culture and their stories of immigration and arrival is relevant to all of us because it is part of our histories.

Since 2008, Rosario has led a Spanish language and literature program for promising students in the Dominican Republic. She designed the curriculum as part of MACILE (Matemáticas, Ciencias y Lenguaje), a program dedicated to improving the quality of education for K-12 students in less advantaged communities. "I had great teachers who really loved our culture and language," she says. "I want these students to have the same experience."

"My role in the liberal arts setting has grown to embrace the potential for hands-on endeavors to act as a vehicle for problem-solving skill development in students, even beyond the studio setting," says David Eichelberger. David comes to Marlboro from Ferrum College, and he also has teaching experience from Appalachian State University, the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and the most established craft schools in the nation. His experience in the field includes technical aspects of ceramics from glaze formulation to kiln building, from wheel throwing to hand building. David avoids labels and bridges definitions by acting as both "potter" and "sculptor." He makes one-of-a-kind pieces in his own studio, exhibits nationally, and co-owns a wholesale porcelain tableware business. His work has been published in Ceramics Monthly, American Craft, and Clay: A Studio Handbook, among other publications.

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.

Richard Glejzer came to Marlboro after teaching at North Central College in Illinois and College of Idaho. "I have always admired Marlboro's approach to teaching and service, where students work closely with faculty to develop their own academic path and where students, faculty, and staff work together in a shared community," he says. Richard is especially excited to be working in an environment where he can continue to work across traditional disciplinary divides, and even teach yoga.

Since graduating from Marlboro College with a Plan of Concentration titled “A Technical and Theoretical Study of Cinematography,” Brad Heck has pursued a range of roles in film production, from camera crew to producer/director. He has worked on commercial and independent projects that have been shown on television and in theaters and festivals, nationally and internationally. This includes being cinematographer for all three Movies from Marlboro productions, Northern Borders, Peter and John, and Wetware, and camera operator for Windy Acres, which received a 2004 New England Emmy. Brad also received a 2016 NY Emmy for his work with BRIC TV, a Brooklyn-based network offering cultural programming. As a teacher, Brad has designed and taught courses in everything from Advanced Lighting to The Art of the Minidoc, from Live Event Shooting to Experimental Film, first as part of the Movies from Marlboro program and since 2016 as a visiting professor. He is currently completing producing/directing Arming Sisters, about the grassroots effort to end violence against indigenous women, and is an MFA candidate at Vermont College of the Fine Arts.

When he left his home in Islamabad, Pakistan, Amer Latif hoped to find some answers to his many questions about the universe in science. But by the time he graduated with a degree in physics from Bard College, Amer knew that the answers to his questions—and often the questions themselves—transcended science. His liberal arts education had allowed other questions to surface: "questions of beauty and meaning," he says. He found himself driven by a desire to know the deeper significance of things in addition to the measurement of them. "The first place I found that did not shy away from these questions was in the writings of Rumi," says Amer.

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.

Coming to Marlboro from a fellowship in social policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science and a postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of Lisbon, Ian McManus brings a wealth of experience in international and comparative politics. He teaches courses that offer cross-national perspectives on pressing political, economic, and social concerns, from gender equality to political polarization, subjects that he is passionate about. He enjoys inspiring students to become engaged learners and active participants in our complex political world.

With more than a decade of experience teaching at the college level in both the US and India, Rituparna Mitra has a deep awareness of the diverse academic interests and needs of students. Her expertise in the areas of global Anglophone literature, social and environmental justice, displacement and migration, and gender and ethnicity brings a transnational perspective to the exploration of literature and writing. “By teaching works that incite thought on translation and difference, I support critical-thinking individuals and engaged world citizens,” she said. With her scholarship in postcolonial studies, Rituparna presents the opportunity for students to explore decolonizing narratives, narratives of nation and diaspora, and narratives of uneven globalization, activism, and social movements.

With almost two decades of experience as a professional director, Jean O’Hara’s practice and theoretical work is informed by her desire to address marginalized voices. She has directed everything from professional theater to community performances, from Dell’ Arte International School of Physical Theatre student productions to Inuit performances at the Alianait Festival, Nanavut. In every venue she has pursued performances that critically examine ethnicity, gender, class, and sexuality. She has also founded and directed three ensemble-based theater troupes that address issues of social justice. “I see theater and storytelling as an important way to connect, build community, and create a much-needed space for the variant voices in and outside the college to be heard.”

A biologist with a passion for rare plant conservation, Jenny Ramstetter graduated from Marlboro College herself. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts, with a dissertation on the dynamics of pollination and fertilization in two wild plant species, and did postdoctoral research on rare plants in France. Jenny recognizes that biology is only one of many pieces to the conservation ‘puzzle.’ "One of the most exciting things about being at Marlboro is that it offers so many opportunities to integrate biology with policy issues and cultural considerations," says Jenny, who has team-taught a course in Conservation Biology with economics professor Jim Tober.

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.

With a wealth of ethnographic experience and a focus on multidisciplinary theorizations of social and cultural processes, Nelli Sargsyan brings sociocultural anthropology into the 21st century for Marlboro students. “My research explorations, as also echoed in my teaching, are theoretically informed by feminist cultural anthropology, linguistic anthropology, queer studies, and diaspora studies,” says Nelli. She has taught in culturally diverse college settings, from State University of New York at Albany to Yerevan State Linguistic University, in Armenia, and welcomes the opportunity to collaborate with colleagues and students pursuing a variety of geographical, topical, and methodological interests, including international ethnographic research.

"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.

"Writing is a tremendous source of community. It’s also a technology for arriving at more interesting and complex ideas. When we read and write, we join conversations that reach across time and space," says Bronwen Tate, who came to Marlboro after teaching in Stanford’s interdisciplinary critical-thinking program, Thinking Matters. "I love to get into the how of writing with students—working with them to identify the strongest point of view for a story or geeking out over semicolon usage." Marlboro’s small class sizes and student-driven tutorials offer Bronwen the ideal setting for intensive side-by-side work.