The 2023 CLAS Faculty Governance Elections are scheduled to run from 8:00 a.m. on Wednesday, March 1, to midnight on Wednesday, March 8. Please contact Lisa Gray with any questions or problems concerning the faculty elections.
The CLAS Faculty Assembly meets monthly during the academic year to advise the Dean and Associate Deans and to deliberate and act on policy issues (see the College's Manual of Procedure, Article V). The Faculty Assembly includes both representatives elected by the CLAS Electoral Groups and members selected as representatives by their departments. View the current membership of the Faculty Assembly.
The Faculty Assembly has six member seats to fill this year. Two members must come from the Natural and Mathematical Sciences, two members must come from the Social Sciences, one member must come from the Humanities, and one member must come from the Arts. Faculty in each electoral group may vote only for candidates nominated from that electoral group, therefore you will only be able to see the candidates in your own group.
Natural and Mathematical Sciences (Electoral Group I) candidates (click on name to see statement)
Social Sciences (Electoral Group II) candidates (click on name to see statement)
Humanities (Electoral Group III) candidates (click on name to see statement)
Arts (Electoral Group IV) candidates (click on name to see statement)
NATURAL AND MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES (Electoral Group I) CANDIDATE STATEMENTS
Palle Jorgensen
Professor of Mathematics
PhD, Mathematics, Aarhus University, Denmark
Joined the UI faculty in 1984
I am honored to have been nominated. Strong faculty participation via the Faculty Assembly is vital in us developing new initiatives in response to new and emerging college-wide challenges. It is essential that we all work together in a way that is not top-down. I have led research projects, have directed many PhD theses, and covered both pure and applied mathematics, led projects that cut across fields; and I have collaborated on teaching/research projects with multiple departments within CLAS. I am an Alliance faculty, and I am active in undergraduate advising, stressing work with minority students. I work on Introduction to Research Opportunities for undergraduates.
Johna Leddy
Associate Professor, Chemistry
PhD, Chemistry, The University of Texas
Joined UI faculty in 1991
The most important objectives and opportunities for faculty are the education of the students, both undergraduate and graduate; the promotion of research and scholarship; and the advancement of faculty and staff. The commitment of the CLAS community to these objectives is impressive. I look to join the Faculty Assembly to promote these priorities. My skills to support that effort are as follows.
Research expertise in the domains of energy systems and electrochemistry extends from patents for devices to measurements to modeling. Increasing catalytic reaction rates by physical means of magnetic gradients and ultrasound are both practically and fundamentally interesting. Fuel cells that run on ethanol and solar cells to generate hydrogen are a focus.
At the University, prior service on Research Council, twice as chair, Campus Planning and Parking Committees, Faculty Senate, and Faculty Assembly provides some understanding of governance structure and opportunities to promote research. In the Department of Chemistry, I have served on many committees, but supporting the students and their educational opportunities as an academic advisor and on the Undergraduate and Graduate Education Committees have been especially rewarding.
Outside the University, I have held elected office as Past Present, Past Secretary, (and Fellow) of the Electrochemical Society, an international organization with 8,000 members, biannual meetings with an attendance of 2,000 to 4,500, and four peer-reviewed publications. ECS’ focus is to promote and disseminate fundamental and technological research. I am also Past President and Past Treasurer of the Society for Electroanalytical Chemistry, an organization devoted to research advances and student education. In these offices, I had opportunities to integrate teams of individuals to promote the Societies’ objectives.
With service on the Faculty Assembly, I aim to further the education of the students, foment insightful, interesting research and scholarship, and promote the interests of colleagues so strongly committed to the success of the College and University.
Scott K. Shaw
Associate Professor, Director of Graduate Studies
Department of Chemistry
PhD, Chemistry, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Joined the UI Faculty in 2012
I am writing to ask for your support of my candidacy for the Faculty Assembly. As a member of the Iowa faculty, I have developed a deep passion for our shared mission of advancing knowledge and inspiring the next generation of scholars. My experiences and skills make me a strong candidate for this role. I have served on various CLAS and University committees and am actively involved in shaping the academic policies and career paths of our students. Through these experiences I have gained a nuanced understanding of the challenges and opportunities that our institution faces, and I am committed to working collaboratively with my colleagues and leadership to address these issues.
If elected to the Faculty Assembly, I will promote transparency, diversity, and inclusivity in all aspects of our academic community. I will work with empathy to advance the concerns of all members of our campus. I will also work to support initiatives that enhance our academic programs, provide resources for teaching and research, and foster community across departments and disciplines.
In conclusion, I am deeply committed to our academic mission and would be honored to serve as a representative to the Faculty Assembly. I am excited about the opportunity to contribute to our community in this capacity and look forward to working with my colleagues to build a stronger, more vibrant academic institution.
Thank you for your consideration.
Kara M. Whitaker
Assistant Professor and Director of Graduate Studies
Department of Health and Human Physiology
PhD (Exercise Science) University of South Carolina, MPH (Physical Activity) University of South Carolina
Joined UI faculty in 2018
My research program aims to better understand the determinants and health effects of physical activity, sedentary behavior, and sleep in at-risk populations. I primarily work with pregnant and postpartum people and their children, midlife to older adults, and underrepresented minorities. I have received both extramural and intramural research funding to support this work, including funding from the National Institutes of Health. I am a Fellow of the American Heart Association and the American College of Sports Medicine. In 2022 I had the honor of receiving the Early Career Scholar of the Year Award from the University of Iowa.
I also serve as the Director of Graduate Studies and am an active member of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee within the Department of Health and Human Physiology. Through my various roles at the University of Iowa, my goal is to provide mentorship for both faculty and students by supporting and encouraging interdisciplinary and collaborative work. I look forward to continuing to build collaborations with faculty across CLAS by serving on the Faculty Assembly.
SOCIAL SCIENCES (Electoral Group II) CANDIDATE STATEMENTS
E Cram (they/them)
Assistant Professor
Communication Studies and Gender, Women’s & Sexuality Studies
PhD, Communication and Culture, Indiana University
Joined the UI faculty in 2016
Faculty assembly is a crucial representative body that shapes decision-making and policy within the college, and thus impacts the lives of faculty, students, and staff in ways mundane and less so. In a time in which our campus continues to adapt to external challenges and opportunities to reimagine structures across the college, faculty assembly can recommit to deliberative processes of that prioritize equity and inclusion, collaborative problem solving and creative solutions to structural constraints.
I joined the faculty in Fall 2016 as an Assistant Professor. In my current role, I teach undergraduate and graduate courses in Communication Studies and Gender, Women’s & Sexuality Studies. My research is thoroughly interdisciplinary and engages the environmental communication practices of cultural workers who name and intervene in the cultural politics of environment. As such, I deeply appreciate the value of multi-disciplinary perspectives to understand and engage in some of the grand challenges of our times, and the critical import of the humanities for addressing these challenges with multiple and complex audiences. Further, my appointments bridge the social sciences and humanities and provide a broad perspective on matters shaping CLAS. As an instructor, my goals mirror the types of values and processes I would bring to discussions in Faculty Assembly: equity, diversity, inclusion, accessibility, and dignity. Through my departmental service with our DEIC and Graduate Affairs Committee, I have experience working to materialize these values at the department level and welcome the opportunity to collaborate with faculty across the college, to support inclusive and holistic spaces of scholarly inquiry and creative practice for students, faculty, and staff. Prior to arriving at Iowa, I was a Visiting Assistant Professor at a small liberal arts college, which also provides me a unique perspective on the structural challenges for instructional track and/or contingent faculty. In this role, I am eager to learn institutional memory from senior faculty and collaborate with faculty of all ranks on important policy, and to broaden efforts to recruit and retain minoritized faculty and staff.
Frederick Solt
Associate Professor, Political Science
PhD, Political Science, University of North Carolina
Joined the UI faculty in 2012
As the College faces new and ongoing challenges as it pursues its mission at the heart of our research university, the role of faculty is central to finding solutions. My experiences in teaching and research over a decade here at Iowa have given me valuable perspectives to this end. I have developed and regularly teach several different successful General Education courses, the courses that draw students from across the College and University. Informed by my own experience as a first-generation student, I have worked to find instructional methods that are accessible and inclusive to all of our students. My research spans not only political science but also sociology, economics, and computer science; much of it embodies ways to use open source and open access tools to help more researchers generate better answers to more questions. At the intersection of research and teaching, I lead a lab of current and former Iowa students that takes advantage of our hard-earned Zoom skills and other tools to collaborate across distances spanning 11 time zones. If elected, I will look forward to working with colleagues across the College, all of whom bring their own wealth of skills and experiences in problem solving, to together address our shared challenges.
Sujatha Sosale
Associate Professor
School of Journalism and Mass Communication
PhD, Mass Communication, University of Minnesota
Joined UI faculty in 2003
I joined Iowa in 2003, and since then I have served and continue to serve in various capacities at the departmental, College, and university levels, and the profession, in both leadership and other roles. For example, I have served as Director of Graduate Studies at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and as Head of the International Communication Section (the largest in the Association) of the International Association for Media and Communication Research, one of three main professional associations for the discipline. Currently I serve as Chair of the DEI taskforce for the School of Journalism. I continue to serve on the International Studies BA Advisory Board, on Fulbright candidate interview panels, and I hold courtesy appointments in International Programs and Interdepartmental Programs. Most recently, I served for a term in the University Faculty Senate.
My long arc of service at Iowa has reinforced for me the importance of a forum like the CLAS Faculty Assembly where colleagues in the College are charged with addressing College policies and engaging with ongoing questions in the areas of student support, research and scholarship, diversity, and community engagement, to name a few. If elected to this forum I will have the opportunity to participate in decision-making processes that affect these and other areas vital to our collective mission.
HUMANITIES (Electoral Group III) CANDIDATE STATEMENTS
Aron Aji
Associate Professor of Instruction
Director, Director of Translation Programs
Division of World Languages, Literatures and Cultures
PhD, Southern Illinois University
At UI since 2014
I am a literary translator from the Turkish, my native language, and have translated prose, poetry and drama, mainly by modern and contemporary Turkish authors. I have received two translation fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, The National Translation Award, Global Humanities Translation Prize, and was finalist for the PEN Translation Prize. I was the past-president of The American Literary Translators Association.
I arrived at the University to direct the MFA in Literary Translation program and was instrumental in the development of the BA in Translation and in receiving an NRC grant from the US-DOE to establish a Center for Translation and Global Literacy. Previously, I served as academic dean of a college of arts and sciences, and in various other administrative roles while remaining an active faculty member and teaching courses in comparative literature, global cultures, European Modernism, drama, and translation
My interest in serving in the CLAS Faculty Assembly stems from my long-standing commitment to the Humanities as core disciplines in the Academy. Our scholarship and teaching centers around critical inquiry, interdisciplinary dialogue among the liberal arts, and public engagement. As such, we are fundamental to the education of enlightened, purposeful and productive global citizens. We are also crucial in creating, investigating, preserving and promoting human cultures. As a member of the CLAS Faculty assembly, I would like to forge alliances among our disciplinary units and to advocate for our centrality along the intellectual and creative intersections among us that can strengthen our position in the College.
Rebecca Clark
Lecturer, American Sign Language Program
MA, Deaf Cultural Studies, Gallaudet University
Joined UI faculty in 2011
Working with students in the Division of World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures (DWLLC) for the past 11 years has offered me a unique interdisciplinary perspective of our University that I can bring to the Faculty Assembly. After I completed my Master's in Deaf Cultural Studies from Gallaudet University, the only bilingual, bimodal (American Sign Language and English) University in the world, I joined the American Sign Language (ASL) program in 2011 as a Visiting Assistant Professor and in 2013 as a Lecturer. I have served as the Program Director since 2020. As an instructional track faculty (ITF) member, I have designed, developed, and taught a wide range of courses from First-Year Seminars to introductory language courses and advanced Deaf Studies courses taken by individuals minoring in ASL. These courses, as with most of the programs in our Division, enroll students in pursuit of degrees from across our University’s colleges and departments. This classroom diversity has afforded me greater insight into students’ experiences, skills, and expectations. I believe the Faculty Assembly would benefit from this perspective.
Additionally, I can advocate the viewpoint of ITF at the University by serving on behalf of a program that is comprised solely of lecturers and representing the DWLLC in which there are many ITF. The ASL Program here at Iowa is one of the largest in the Big 10, but quite small compared to other units on campus—consisting of only six lecturers and zero tenure track faculty. Despite the high demand for enrollment, our program offers a minor in ASL, but we do not offer a major. As a member of the Faculty Assembly, I would help bring attention to the smaller units on campus and serve to represent the experience of ITF from my division and across the University.
I have had the pleasure of serving on the Faculty Assembly from 2020 to 2022, I would appreciate the opportunity to continue to learn more from faculty across CLAS and to further contribute a unique perspective to the discussions on current University matters.
David Hagan
Lecturer, French and Italian
PhD, The University of Iowa
Joined the UI faculty in 2010
I am both surprised and happy to be nominated to continue to serve on Faculty Assembly. If elected to serve, I will take very seriously my role as a facilitator of communication between members of my unit and Faculty Assembly, knowing that it is through this advisory body that faculty within the departments of CLAS have some power to shape policies put forward by Faculty Senate and the Executive Committee in communication with the University Administration. I will, of course, maintain close communication with and solicit input from all within my unit, with special attention given to those who are on the instructional track.
My wife and I received our advanced degrees here at UI. I completed my doctorate in 2006 and have worked here since. Two of my children are recent graduates of UI and two more are currently enrolled. Viewing this university both as a faculty member and a parent, it is very clear that our university has had to face many difficult challenges in the last several years and will undoubtedly continue to face budgetary problems that require us to carefully consider proposed structural and programmatic accommodations and their effects on students and faculty alike. Externally, I believe we must do more to make clear to the citizens of Iowa that we do a great job of providing a liberal arts education in the face of declining support. Internally, we must demand clarity of vision and equity from our administration as it struggles to face these demands. The best way to do this is to communicate frankly between ourselves in order to take informed, principled action, respecting the values and processes of shared governance.
Yasmine Ramadan
Associate Professor of Arabic
Director of the Arabic Program
Department of French and Italian
PhD, Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies, Columbia University
Joined UI faculty in 2014
As a representative to the CLAS Faculty Assembly I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the articulation and integration of faculty concerns within the university. Throughout my time at the University of Iowa I have been committed to student success, working extensively with undergraduate students as a faculty member, and in my role as director of the Arabic program. In this capacity I have collaborated with colleagues across the college and appreciate the diverse perspectives gained from working across disciplines and programs. I am particularly concerned with the support for underrepresented minority students, faculty, and staff on campus, and served on the CLAS Committee on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for a number of years.
Given the ongoing challenges facing institutions of higher education particularly in relationship to questions of public funding, student enrollment, and recruitment, and in light of the difficulties posed by the pandemic, it is vital that faculty continue to play an integral role in the governance of the university, and that we continue to ensure that the principles of shared governance are upheld. As a scholar and teacher of language and literature working in the humanities, I am particularly aware of the challenges facing our disciplines and look forward to working with colleagues across the college to promote a shared vision for the future. The Faculty Assembly provides an important space for collective discussion and representation across CLAS, and if elected I would be honored to represent faculty positions and concerns.
Debra Trusty
Lecturer, Department of Classics
PhD, Florida State University
Joined UI Faculty in 2017
Since arriving at the University of Iowa in 2017, my attention has centered around enhancing student support, encourage lifelong learning, and preparing students for success beyond the university. I have sought out opportunities to accomplish these goals, including membership on CLAS’s General Education Curriculum Committee and, prior to this, CLAS’s Scholarship Committee. Additionally, I am a member of CLAS’s Technology Committee, as well as the University’s Academic Technology Advisory Council; I was awarded an ITAA grant to install Xboxes in a TILE classroom and serve as a co-leader of a Faculty Learning Community on game-based learning. My focus on technology stems from the belief that it provides students with a diversity of experiences that feature interdisciplinary, hands-on activities, develop abstract skills, and promote emotional and cognitive control. It is my hope that, if I am elected to Faculty Assembly, I will continue to focus on the educational needs of our students.
I have also actively cultivated an outside-the-box approach to problem solving. When I served as Director of Undergraduate Studies for my department from 2019 to 2022, I restructured our departments’ undergraduate programs to make them more flexible and efficient. At the same time, students gained a better understanding of the broader aspects of the field while also increasing their analytical and communication skills. Separately, I worked with International Programs and the Honors Program to expand experiential learning options for Honors students to create and regularly offer a faculty-led study abroad trip for students. I hope to continue to find unique and innovative approaches that promote cross-campus collaboration if elected to Faculty Assembly,
The most rewarding part of every role I serve on campus is the opportunity to interact and engage with the talented faculty and students who call this university home. I would appreciate the opportunity to further serve in this capacity as a member of the Faculty Assembly.
ARTS (Electoral Group IV) CANDIDATE STATEMENTS
Andrew Owens
Lecturer, Department of Cinematic Arts
PhD, Northwestern University
Joined the UI faculty in 2018
As the backbone of shared governance within the largest college at the University of Iowa, CLAS Faculty Assembly requires the engaged contributions of a diverse range of scholars, artists, and teachers at all ranks in order to meet the intricate needs of both us and our students. Existing conversations between faculty and CLAS administration surrounding issues related to diversity, equity, inclusion, student support, faculty support, and curriculum development have only become more pressing in light of the continuing challenges of COVID-19 and its aftereffects, making advocacy from Faculty Assembly more important than ever.
Currently serving as the FA representative from the Department of Cinematic Arts during the 2022-23 academic year, I feel confident, prepared, and inspired to take on the responsibilities this elected position presents. Since my arrival to UI in the fall of 2018, I have consistently taught nearly 200 students (or more) each semester in a mixture of both general education courses and major/minor requirements. This breadth has allowed me to glean unique insight into the diversity of opportunities and challenges both UI students and faculty across CLAS are presented with, and I pledge to be an eager and vocal advocate on behalf of both groups. I believe that my professional service profile has also provided a strong foundation for me to positively impact the future of Faculty Assembly. In addition to departmental service roles on committees ranging from graduate admissions, undergraduate achievement awards, and undergraduate recruitment, I have and continue to hold elected service positions within international organizations such as the Society for Cinema and Media Studies and Console-ing Passions.