Core Division

Katheryn Wright

Biography

Dr. Katheryn Wright is professor of Interdisciplinary Studies and Digital Humanities. She is also the Director of Study Abroad. Dr. Wright earned her PhD and MA in Humanities from Florida State University in Tallahassee, FL—where she specialized in Media Studies and Cultural Geography—and a BA from Stetson University in DeLand, FL, where she studied English Literature and Studio Art (ceramics).

Distinctions & Awards

Roger H. Perry Endowed Chair for Innovation

Publications & Abstracts

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Faith Yacubian

Biography

Faith Yacubian, Ed.D. earned her doctoral degree in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies in 2020. She is an Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies and teaches in both the EHS and Core Divisions. She is also the Program Coordinator for the Signature Course Program in EHS. She is avid scholar of Post-Colonial Theory, Feminist Theories, Queer Theory, and Critical Whiteness Studies. As a academic-activist, she filters her scholarly queries through the insights and stories provided by community-activists and advocacy organizations in Burlington and Winooski.

Distinctions & Awards

Outstanding Dissertation Award ““ University of Vermont, VT 2021

Service-Learning Faculty Award ““ Champlain College, VT 2021

INCLUDE Faculty/Staff Award ““ Champlain College, VT 2018

SGA’s Leadership in Excellence Award ““ Champlain College, VT. 2018

Office of Diversity and Inclusion Administrator Award ““ Champlain College, VT 2009

Office of Student Diversity and Inclusion Ally Award ““ Champlain College, VT 2008

Publications & Abstracts

A Critical Discourse Analysis Of The Professoriate And The Embodiment Of Epistemic Coloniality/whiteness: A Call For A Contemplative Approach To Academic Freedom

Favorite Quote

“If you have come to help me you are wasting your time. If you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”

—Aboriginal activists group Queensland, 1970s

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Kristian Brevik

Biography

Kristian Brevik is an artist, scientist, and educator, who works to bring together artistic practice, ecology+evolutionary science, and the environmental humanities into collaborative research and art exploring the ways the lives of humans and other beings are entangled. They research relationships between humans and insects using genetics and computational biology, teach science, art and the humanities in academic and community classes, write on the theory and practice of building kinship with other species, and create artwork in the form of large interactive installations, collaborative performance, and short zines on relationships between humans and others in the community of life. They seek to find ways that art and life can help to foster a sense of deep connectedness with the nonhuman kin with whom we share the world. Their large, participatory art installations are rooted in the places and ecologies they represent.

Publications & Abstracts

PUBLICATIONS & ABSTRACTS

Recommended Reading, Listening & Viewing

• BCA Artist Studio Tour: Kristian Brevik
• @kbrevil_whalefall on Instagram

Curriculum Vitae

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Favorite Quote

Malheur Maar: A hole in black ground. Steep cliff walls round. A ring of tall green reeds under the walls around the water. Some small people sit here and there silently on the cliffs among rabbitbrush and sagebrush. Some small people silently climb up my pants leg. In the round water are the reeds and the walls and some of the people and the wind moving and the silence.

—Ursula K. LeGuin

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Amy Howe

Biography

Amy Howe has been an interdisciplinary educator for 20+ years. Her experience includes designing and teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in gender studies, general education, critical theory, American studies, and the study of religion at Harvard, Brown, Middlebury, Smith, and now at Champlain College. Before her graduate studies and teaching career, she held a nonprofit career managing California- and nationally-based youth-led community organizing projects for underrepresented communities. In 2019, she earned her doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in the study of religion (religion, gender, culture). She also serves as the Academic Director of Women, Gender, and Representation for Smith’s summer Precollege Programs.

Over the last five years at Champlain, Amy Howe has taught widely across the Core Division. Her leadership in innovative curricula and classroom design and leadership, student support, and involvement in diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice issues earned her the Francine Page Teaching Excellence in 2021. Centered on experiential learning techniques, she regularly engages students in community partnerships in rural humanities, digital humanities, and racial and gender social justice issues.

Amy Howe not only remains incredibly proud of being the first in her family to pursue higher education, but she is also a relentless advocate for students who navigate first-generation lives. In her free time, Howe loves spending time with her two dogs, growing house plants (too many these days), crafting, exploring new outdoor spaces, and enjoying circus arts.

Favorite Quote

“The paradox of education is precisely this—that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which one is being educated.”

—James Baldwin

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Fred Kosnitsky

Biography

Fred’s academic background is in the biological/ecological sciences and the environmental studies realm. He has an undergraduate degree in Biology from Williams College, has studied Ecology at the graduate level at Dartmouth College, and has a Masters degree in environmental law and policy from the Environmental Law Center of Vermont Law School.

For the past four decades he has been involved in the environmental arena as a Board member of groups such as Vermont Earth Institute, the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, 350vermont.org, and the Voice of the Potash Brook Watershed. He has written columns on nature and the environment for the Vermont Times, The Other Paper in South Burlington, and the Saint Albans Messenger. He is currently a member of the South Burlington Energy Committee. Fred has taught at Community College of Vermont since 1983, and has joined Champlain College as an adjunct in 2023.

Recommended Reading, Listening & Viewing

• Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
• Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
• The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson

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Ariel Burgess

Biography

Ariel K. McKnight Burgess’ interests revolve around how we foster relationships between humans and the more-than-human world that are rooted in care, justice, and mutual responsibility. Through her research on the psychological, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of the climate and ecological crises, Ariel aims to nurture transformational change. With a specialty in climate and ecological psychology, recently she has been thinking a lot about eco-empathy, ecological mourning, and resilience.

At Champlain, Ariel teaches interdisciplinary ecologically-oriented courses where she explores with her students how topics like science, justice, policy, history, art, economics, social change, worldviews, and ethics are interwoven.

Outside of Champlain, Ariel facilitates eco-grief and eco-empathy workshops, and hosts monthly Eco-Resiliency Gatherings, which are always free and open to all who are interested. Ariel is earning a doctorate in ecopsychology with a specialization in climate response and resilience. She holds a bachelor’s in environmental studies and studio art, and a master’s in international environmental policy.

Publications & Abstracts

Burgess, A. K. McK. expected 2023. “Eco Empathy.” In Ecological Feelings: A Rhetorical Compendium, edited by Joshua Barnett. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press.

Favorite Quote

“The way out is in.”

—Thich Nhat Hanh

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Erik Shonstrom

Biography

Erik Shonstrom is the author of several nonfiction books, including Wild Curiosity, The Wisdom of the Body, and I Probably Should’ve Brought a Tent. He has an MFA from Bennington College.

Publications & Abstracts

• Wild Curiosity
• The Indoor Epidemic
• The Wisdom of the Body: What Embodied Cognition Can Teach us about Learning, Human Development, and Ourselves
• I Probably Should’ve Brought a Tent

Curriculum Vitae

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Kelly Bowen

Biography

Kelly A. Bowen is currently an Adjunct Professor in the Core Division. Before Champlain College, Kelly worked in global trade assisting companies to identify opportunities and expand in emerging markets. As an International Trade Director for The Massachusetts Port Authority, she also led delegations of American manufacturers on Gubernatorial Trade Missions. Kelly managed offices in Jerusalem, Berlin, Derry, and Warsaw.

Time abroad fostered a love of the arts. Switching to the right brain, Kelly left business to pursue creative writing. She earned an M.F.A. at Goddard College.

Kelly champions experiential learning within an interdisciplinary framework. Her passion is empowering students (or clients) to uncover personal strengths and recognize their potential:

“Only after examining the self can we place ourselves in the context of a wider world. Critical thinkers evolve through this self-examination and encouragement.”

A Pushcart Prize-nominated writer, her work has been featured in Creative Nonfiction Magazine, The Huffington Post, Healthy Women, The Fiction Advocate, Vermont Digger, USA Today, and others. Her recent poem Dress Code was published in the Military Review Poetry Reader: Global War on Terrorism, 2001-2021 Anthology. Her essay Mystic Trinities received a notable mention in the 2022 edition of Best American Essays.

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Rowshan Nemazee

Biography

Rowshan Nemazee’s dream to teach in a small college came to fruition when she arrived at Champlain where she is able to teach and speak to social justice topics from an interdisciplinary perspective. Before joining Champlain’s Core faculty in 2009, she taught at McGill University, St. Michel’s College, SUNY Plattsburgh, and the Community College of Vermont.

Dr. Nemazee earned her BA degree in World Religions and World Literature from Trinity College of Vermont and her MA and PhD in Theology, Church History, and Feminist Theology, respectively, from McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

Research and teaching topics/subjects “at the margins, against the grain, and in deference of ‘the other’” draws Nemazee’s passion and attention, most notably, the historical impact of race, ethnicity, disability, gender, and material culture on lived experiences in America, the Middle East, and beyond. Her interests center on broaching problematic methodological and epistemological issues that intersect with the study of “social justice.” In the area of justice per se, this translates into the interface of the marginalized and culture. From an epistemological perspective, the topics converge on an analysis of different thinking styles, both analytic and colonial. Dr. Nemazee mitigates these issues through a differentiated appreciation of knowledge acquisition located in self-critical reflexivity.

Distinctions & Awards

Recipient of the Faculty of Religious Studies’ Graduate Fellowship, McGill University, January 2006.

Recipient of the Harold Helm McGill Major Fellowship, September 2003.

Recipient of Kappa Gamma Pi’s St. Catherine Medal, 1996.

Recipient of the Citizen’s Award, South Burlington, Vermont, 1994.

Curriculum Vitae

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