Francis Byrne

Dr. Francis Byrne has been with Shawnee State University since 1987, and currently teaches courses in Composition, Composition and Research, Introduction to Language and Linguistics, Patterns of English, History of English, Topics in Linguistics: Pidginization/Creolization, Language Acquisition, English Language in Society, and Senior Seminar. 

Professional organizations that he is affiliated with include the American Dialect Society, Fulbright Association, Linguistic Society of America, Shawnee Education Association, Society for Caribbean Linguistics, and the Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics.  He has also been published in numerous articles.

Dr. Byrne was born in Denver, CO, and is married to Julia Coll Byrne, with whom he has two children, (Francis and Sean).  E-mail: fbyrne@shawnee.edu  

Monique Diderich

Dr. Diderich teaches Gender Socialization, Sociology of Family, Sociology of Work, Sociology of Aging, and Research Methods. She got her Master’s degree in Social and Organizational Psychology from the University of Groningen (The Netherlands.) Her Ph.D. in Sociology is from the University of Nevada (Las Vegas.) She also taught at University of Nevada (Las Vegas,) and at Hunter College (New York).  Her book manuscript about step-families entitled Sibling Relationships in Contemporary American Families will soon be published.

In addition to writing, reading, and researching, Dr. Diderich loves photography, fashion, hiking, and going to the gym. She also loves to travel—her favorite places to visit are California, New York, France, and the Netherlands. In addition to speaking English, she is fluent in Dutch, German, and French.

Darren Harris-Fain

Darren Harris-Fain (Associate Professor, English) has taught at Shawnee State University since 1995. He has a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and religion from the Honors Tutorial College of Ohio University and earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in English at Kent State University. He teaches composition, Civilization and Literature courses, American film history, Women and Film, Children’s Literature, and a variety of courses on modern British and American literature. His research interests include science fiction, fantasy, comics, and film.  E-mail: dharris_fain@shawnee.edu

Isabel Graziani

Isabel Graziani teaches many of SSU's Introduction to Art classes, and also teaches upper-level art history courses.

Dr. Graziani presented “Art and Power: A Female Perspective” on March 13, 2007 at the Southern Ohio Museum. The presentation was one of a series scheduled by SSU’s Women’s Center in celebration of National Women’s History Month.

Professor Graziani, who is a native of Italy and who now divides her time between her residences in Portsmouth and Athens, Ohio, plans to offer other Honors Art History courses in the future.
Graziani has also served as a mentor for previous SSU Celebration of Scholarship presenters.

Most recently, she organized a special topics study abroad course to Britain for March 15-23, 2008. 
E-mail: igraziani@shawnee.edu  

Janet Holtman

Dr. Holtman teaches freshman composition and American Literature courses.  She came to SSU in 2007. 

Shannon Lawson

Shannon Lawson has been involved in education for the past 20 years, serving as tutor, preschool teacher, literacy volunteer, reference librarian and college instructor. She received her BA in English from the University of the Witwatersrand http://www.wits.ac.za/ in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1988 and her MA in teaching English from Marshall University http://www.marshall.edu/ in Huntington, WV in 1994. In her tenth year at SSU, she has served as UFS Secretary, facilitator of the Early Service Faculty Learning Community, and past chair of the Women’s Center Steering Committee.

Lawson spent six years working and studying in South Africa in the 1980s. She first traveled there in 1982 and worked as a secretary for the American Consulate in Johannesburg. While a student at WITS, she spent her holidays working at the American International School of Johannesburg http://www.aisj-jhb.com . After completing her BA, she returned to the US and completed her master’s degree at Marshall University in 1994.

Third World Literature and African Literature in particular are of special interest to Lawson. Some of her favorite authors are Doris Lessing, Chinua Achebe, Ngugi Wa Thiongo and Jean Rhys.

Lawson currently resides in Portsmouth, Ohio with her husband and two sons. She is interested in fighting hunger and illiteracy in her community. She is an active volunteer at both her sons’ schools, a volunteer tutor at the Portsmouth Public Library, director of the Pleasant Green Baptist Church food pantry and a member of the local Crop Walk planning committee.  E-mail: slawson@shawnee.edu

Robert Mendris

Dr. Robert Mendris, Assistant Professor in Mathematical Sciences, has taught at SSU since 2004. After earning his B.S. from Comenius University, Dr. Mendris received his Ph.D. from the Ohio State University.
E-mail: rmendris@shawnee.edu  

Nicholas Meriwether

Dr. Nicholas Meriwether, Associate Professor of Philosophy, has taught at SSU since 1996. After receiving his B.A. from Hendrix College, he obtained his M.A. from Trinity Evangelical Div. School, and then earned his Ph.D. from Purdue University. Dr. Meriwether resides in Portsmouth with his wife, Janet.  E-mail: nmeriwether@shawnee.edu  

Chip Poirot

Dr. Chip Poirot graduated cum laude with a B.A. in Economics and Political Science with a Spanish Minor from Guilford College, Greensboro, North Carolina, 1984. His undergraduate thesis was on the political economy of violence in Guatemala from the Spanish Conquest through the early 1980's. He received my PhD in economics from the University of Utah, 1991 with primary fields of emphasis in labor economics and economic history. Dr. Poirot's doctoral dissertation was on the political economy of rural social change in pre-industrial England.

Since receiving his PhD. in economics, Dr. Poirot has taught at Eastern Washington University, Spokane Washington (1991-1993), as a visiting lecturer sponsored by the Civic Education Project at the University of Timisoara, Romania (1993-1994), the American University in Bulgaria (1994-1997), at Mary Washington College (1998-1999) and at SSU since fall of 1999. He has has authored several peer reviewed articles and multiple conference papers. His chief interests are in economic anthropology, economic history and the philosophy of economics.

Dr. Poirot served as the Honors Program Director at SSU from 2003-2006. He also teaches a Honors Senior Seminar course, which focuses on conflicts between science and society, and how these conflicts relate to critical thinking.

For extra curricular activities, Dr. Poirot likes to read science fiction novels about alternate worlds and practice Karate and Yoga. He is married with three dogs. His passions are good dark coffee, dark chocolate, good food and red wine. He despises bad coffee, vanilla, fast food and white zinfandel.
E-mail: cpoirot@shawnee.edu  

Tim Scheurer

Dr. Tim Scheurer is chair of the Department of English and Humanities at Shawnee State University. He has taught literature and popular culture courses for over twenty years. He is the author of Born in the U.S.A.: The Myth of America in Popular Music from Colonial Times to the Present (University Press of Mississippi) and he has written articles on topics ranging from the music of the Beatles to the films and literature of the Vietnam War to using educational drama in intercultural studies courses. Currently, he is completing a book on the conventions of film scoring in American genre films. He also serves on the editorial boards of Popular Music and Society and The Journal of Popular Film and Television, he is the book review editor for Popular Music and Society. He has served as president of the American Culture Association and is past President of the Midwest Popular Culture Association. Currently, he is also serving on the board of the Ohio Humanities Council.  E-mail: tscheurer@shawnee.edu 

Dr. Kurt Shoemaker

In his Honors courses, Dr. Shoemaker takes the approach of examining controversy as it applies to science – both controversy within the sciences as well as controversy about science. His Honors students spend a lot of time debating two of the most controversial scientific ideas – global climate change and human evolution.

Dr. Shoemaker grew up in Canton, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor’s in Geology at Mount Union College, and his Ph.D. in Geology at Miami of Ohio. He taught Geology and Environmental Science at Saint Joseph’s College in Indiana for six years before he came to SSU; he has been here for three years.

His academic interests seem pretty diverse – environment, volcanic systems, and human evolution – but actually, he says, there’s a sensible explanation for how it all ties together. 

Dr. Shoemaker also likes to read, mostly nonfiction on all sorts of topics.  He also love movies – everything from Oscar winners to comic-book adaptations. He appreciates tattoos as an art form. He collects Pez dispensers. IHe's also been known to brew his own beer on occasion. He loves to travel; anyplace of geological or historical significance is of particular interest to him.  He's been lucky to be able to travel all over the United States as a geologist. Some of the most isolated and desolate, but beautiful, country that he has ever seen is on the Owyhee Plateau, where Oregon, Idaho and Nevada come together; he did my dissertation research there. And he always has a lot of fun in St. Louis, of all places. Someday Dr. Shoemaker would like to be wealthy enough to have a place on one of the Lake Erie islands.

Assistant Professor Patricia Spradlin

Professor Spradlin received her Bachelor’s Degree in English and Fine Art at Marshall University in 1984 and a Master’s Degree in English Humanities, also from Marshall University in 1988. Her special interests are contemporary poetry and painting. She taught both English and visual art for seventeen years in the public schools, in grades ranging from six to twelve. Prior to coming to SSU, she also taught composition at both SSU and Ohio University’s Southern Campus. She then spent time as a full time instructor at Ohio University in Athens, and returned to public school teaching before coming to Shawnee State.

At Shawnee State University, where she has taught for the past seven years in both the English and Humanities Department and the Education Department, she currently teaches composition courses, English Methods for Middle Childhood and English Methods for Secondary English Education majors. She also teaches Modern American and British Literature and supervises English Education student teachers in the field.

As Director for the OhioWins program (Ohio Writing Institute) Professor Spradlin administrates and conducts writing workshops for area high school teachers, and she feels rewarded by this work because it contributes to colleagues whom she admires and enjoys spending professional time with.

As a past recipient of the Sallie Mae National Teacher of the Year, the Ashland Oil Golden Achiever Educator’s Award, Phi Delta Kappa’s Educator of the Year Award, Professor Spradlin is most proud of her classes that use interactive, creative teaching methods designed to emphasize student writing and response as the focus of the class.

Her special interests include music of all kinds, art, writing poetry, sports and animals.

Professor Spradlin is a member of the Wheelersburg United Methodist Church in Wheelersburg, where she resides with her husband, Rod, and her son,, Drew, who will begin college in the fall of 2008.

John Valentine

Dr. John Valentine, SSU Professor of Philosophy, obtained his A.B. degree from Harvard University. Dr. Valentine earned both his M.A. and Ph.D. from Michigan State University, and has taught at SSU since 1990.

Dr. Valentine resides in Portsmouth with his wife, Anne Nickerson.
E-mail: jvalentine@shawnee.edu