Penn College Announces Faculty Promotions, Sabbaticals

Eight faculty members at Pennsylvania College of Technology have received promotions in rank, and three more have been granted their requests for sabbatical leave in 2004-05.

Members of the faculty receiving promotions are: Dr. Robert B. Gudgel, from assistant professor to associate professor of business administration; Dr. Gene L. Haupt, from assistant professor to associate professor of fitness and lifetime sports; Bryan R. James, from instructor to assistant professor of mathematics; Thomas D. Inman, from assistant professor to associate professor of aviation; Dr. George W. Matthews, from instructor to assistant professor of ethics/philosophy; Steven J. Moff, from assistant professor to associate professor of business administration; Christopher E. Nickerson, from assistant professor to associate professor of HVAC technology; and Curt E. Vander Vere, from instructor to assistant professor of mathematics.

Approved for sabbatical leave are: Dr. Vinay Bahl, associate professor of sociology; Charles F. Kemnitz, associate professor of English; and Christine Mulhollen-Kessler, assistant professor of physician assistant.

Dr. Bahl will participate as an affiliated fellow at the International Institute of Asian Studies in Amsterdam and The Hague. During Fall 2004, she will work with international scholars and advance her research project "Rethinking Development and Underdevelopment: A Comparative Study of the Large Scale Steel Industry in Colonial India, Imperial Russia, Britain, and the United States at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century."

Kemnitz, a 2004 National Endowment for the Arts Literary Fellow for creative nonfiction, will use the fall semester to complete his research on the effects of uranium prospecting and mining on the culture, environment and health of the Navaho and Mountain Ute. The research ultimately will shape essays for publication, as well as chapters for his book, "Seep with Yellow Frogs."

Mulhollen-Kessler is working toward her doctorate in adult education at The Pennsylvania State University. The Fall 2004-Spring 2005 sabbatical will allow her time to refine her dissertation proposal, complete the oral comprehensive examination and complete the bulk of her research.

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