The end of the spring semester, 2024, marks the completion of the first year of CAT+FD's pilot program to support part-time instructors at Xavier. As you know these teachers do excellent work here in teaching, scholarship, and service, and they increasingly make up a significant portion of our teaching rosters.
This semester I had the pleasure of meeting and working with some of the continuing part-time teachers, some of whom have been at Xavier for many years. Though this cohort needs less support, they have valuable experience and insight to offer us all, and I was particularly pleased by some members' decisions to drop in and check out our programming.
This more experienced cohort includes Albertina Walker, who represents the Institute for Black Catholic Studies, Daniel Curley, who brings a wide range of prior work experience to his teaching, including a stint with the federal government, and Kesia Walker, who has worked for 20 years in public health.
We also had a solid roster of new or newer teachers come through this term, including Bonnie Katalenich, formerly in the private sector with LabCorp, LaTeshya Martin, who previously worked in the Attorney General's office of Mississippi, and Emily DeWet, cultural anthropologist with teaching experience at Notre Dame and U.N.O., who is teaching exclusively within the XCOR at Xavier.
A big thanks from CAT+FD to these amazing teachers. It's been my pleasure meeting and working with them. Please join me in thanking them for their work here, and I hope that in the fall we can bring even more returning and new part-time instructors into our support cohort, so that we may all benefit from their skills and expertise.
In the meantime, we had one teacher complete the program and earn the certificate this semester. This teacher went above and beyond in participating in our program, and it was an absolute joy to have her on the sessions, consistently brining insight, curiosity, and positivity to the table. This teacher is Melissa Lea!
Dr. Melissa Lea has been an adjunct professor of psychology and neuroscience at Xavier for three years. She has taught Introduction to Psychology, Physiological Psychology, and Cognitive Neuroscience.
Previously, she was a tenured faculty member of Psychology and Neuroscience and the Assistant Dean of Student Success and Academic Advising at Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi. Trained as a cognitive scientist, she has researched person perception, specifically the perceptual influences that affect familiarity and name recall.
Dr. Lea works as an academic advisor for the School of Psychological Sciences at The University of Northern Colorado. She has a passion for working with first generation, transfer, underrepresented minorities, and Pell grant eligible students.
Please join us in congratulating Dr. Lea on her certification, and thanking her for her excellent contributions to all that we do here.
Thank you all, and have a great summer!
Jeremy Tuman