Pitt-Bradford announces 11 new full-time faculty members

BRADFORD, PA – The University of Pittsburgh at Bradford has welcomed 11 new full-time faculty members for the 2013-14 academic year.

Joining the faculty are Dr. Patricia L. Brougham, assistant professor of criminal justice; John Crawford, assistant professor of business management; Dr. Helma de Vries-Jordan, assistant professor of political science; Orin A. James, instructor of biology; Dr. Shelly R. Klinek, visiting assistant professor of health and physical education; Anna K. Lemnitzer, assistant professor of art; John S. Liberatore, visiting instructor of music; Mark H. Morrison, visiting instructor and interim director of the Mathematics Center; Dr. Denise A. Piechnick, assistant professor of biology; and Dr. James M. Salvo, assistant professor of speech communications.

Returning to Pitt-Bradford as full-time faculty is Jennifer L. Forney, instructor of hospitality management. She had been a visiting instructor before being successfully chosen through a national search process.

Before coming to Pitt-Bradford, Crawford worked for the Dresser-Rand Co. in Olean, N.Y., where he held a variety of financial positions, including project controller and commodity analyst as well as graduating from its financial management accelerated program. In his new position, he will create and develop course curriculum for finance as well as advise an investment club to encourage a hands-on approach to learning. He lives in Olean, with his wife, Rachel, and their daughter, Lila, and spends most of his free time playing basketball or walking his Boxer, Brutus. He earned his Master of Business Administration at St. Bonaventure University in Allegany, N.Y.

de Vries-Jordan earned her doctorate in Government and Politics from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2007 and has taught at Gettysburg College, Eastern Connecticut State University, North Carolina State University, Lafayette College and George Washington University. Her most recent research focuses on the Marriage Equality Movement, LGBT activism, global justice and anti-war protests, and Occupy Wall Street.  She has conducted fieldwork in the United States and Europe, speaks Dutch and French, and enjoys international travel.  de Vries-Jordan is a co-advisor for the LGBTS Alliance and the History and Political Science Club at Pitt-Bradford.  She lives in Olean, N.Y., with her wife and enjoys the outdoors.

Forney has 16 years of experience in hotel management and customer service.  She holds a Master of Science in education from Canisius College and a Bachelor of Science in hospitality management from Pitt-Bradford.

James has a wide background and comes to Pitt-Bradford from Binghamton University – State University of New York, where he taught vertebrate zoology and human anatomy and physiology as well as hybrid courses that included discussions of social philosophy, determinism, colonialism, race, sex and gender. He writes poetry, takes photographs and is the host of his own web-based radio show. He holds a Master of Science degree from Binghamton.

Klinek has 27 years of experience teaching physical education to special needs children and university students. She began her career teaching adapted physical education and coaching Special Olympics. She earned her doctorate degree in educational leadership from Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 2009 and holds a Master of Science degree in early childhood education with an emphasis on movement and learning. Most recently, she served as a full-time faculty member in the physical education department at Slippery Rock University.

Lemnitzer has experience with a variety of arts, including painting, drawing, ceramics, welding, wood, metal, jewelry and sculpture. She earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in painting from the University of Montana and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in sculpture from the University of Arizona. She has taught at her alma maters as well as at Salpointe Catholic High School in Tucson, Ariz.

Liberatore is a composer and pianist and was an artist-in-residence this summer at the I-Park enclave in East Haddam, Conn., and at the Brush Creek Foundation in Saratoga, Wyo. He is a doctoral candidate at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y. In April, he won the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers Morton Gould Young Composer Award for “Nemo Sleeps,” which was performed as a solo recital in Toronto in May.

Morrison received his Bachelor of Science in secondary education in mathematics from Edinboro University, where he graduated summa cum laude, and his master’s degree from Gannon University in curriculum and instruction. He taught in the public schools for 34 years, the last 32 of which were at Bradford Area High School.

Before coming to Pitt-Bradford, Piechnik held two post-doctoral scholar positions at The Pennsylvania State University. Piechnik performed an ecological analysis of the arthropods of the Gettysburg National Military Park as a research project. She earned her doctorate at the University of California, Davis. Her dissertation is titled “Experimental Analysis of Spatial Relationships of Food-webs during Community Assembly.”

Salvo has a degree in communications from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research interests currently include the concepts of friendship and home, especially how these change in light of digital networks. He is an associate director of The International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry and is treasurer for the International Institute of Qualitative Inquiry. He is also a managing editor for the journals Qualitative Inquiry, Cultural Studies <=> Critical Methodologies, and the International Review of Qualitative Research.