Gary Bailey, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
Course Coordinator (UNST 130)
glbailey@ncat.edu

Dr. Gary Bailey grew up in Raleigh, N.C., earned a B.A. in religion studies from Emmanuel College in Georgia, a M. Div. from the Yale University Divinity School, and a Ph.D. in theology and ethics from the University of Iowa. He taught at the University of Iowa as a graduate teaching assistant and later as a visiting assistant professor. From 2001-2007 he was assistant professor of religion studies and philosophy at Midland Lutheran College in Fremont, Nebraska. His research interests include modern and postmodern Christian theology, theological humanism, philosophy of culture, religion and society, and religion and violence. At NCA&T he currently teaches in the Analytical Reasoning foundation course and the Ethics and Technology cluster course.

Deborah H. Barnes, Ph.D., Adjunct Assistant Professor
dhbarnes@ncat.edu

Dr. Deborah H. Barnes, a Greensboro, NC native, earned her MA in African American literature from NC A&T State University where she was named graduate student of the year (1987). She earned the Ph.D. in English from Howard University 1992 where she was one of the first two doctoral students in the Humanities to be selected as a Dorothy Danforth Compton Fellow.  Specializing in contemporary black women writers, she wrote her dissertation on Toni Morrison and Gloria Naylor.  Her scholarly publications have focused primarily on the works of Toni Morrison but also include Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, Sterling Brown, and Arthur P. Davis. The textbook she edited for UNST 140, “I’m Buildin’ Me a Home: an Interdisciplinary  Reader and Workbook for the African American Experience” was released in August 2009.  She currently serves as the Director of the Aggie Impact Scholars Bridge Program.

Agya Boakye-Boaten, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
Course Coordinator (UNST 140)
aboakyeb@ncat.edu 

Agya Boakye-Boaten earned his B.A. in Social Work/Administration and Political Science from the University of Ghana, Legon, in 1999. In 2001 Agya came to the United States to pursue graduate education. He earned a M.A. in Political Science (International Relations) in 2004, and an M.A. in International Affairs (African Studies) in 2003 from the Ohio University. On November 22, 2006, he was awarded the Doctor of Philosophy degree in Educational Studies, with an emphasis in Cultural Studies in Education. Until the spring of 2007, he was an adjunct Professor at Columbus State Community College in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, facilitating courses in Political Science, Sociology, and Cultural Diversity. During his tenure in Columbus State, he was recognized by his peers, through nomination, for the department's outstanding adjunct faculty award in the spring of 2006. On the 15^th of August he started a new position as Assistant Professor of University Studies at North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University in Greensboro, NC. Currently, Agya is facilitating Contemporary World and African American Experience classes. Agya is an International Scholar as a lifelong member of Phi Beta Delta Honor Society, a seasoned musician, and a master drummer. His research interests include alternative education for street children, how to build intellectual and creative capacities of students using alternative education strategies, and the use of education as a medium for the promotion of democracy. He is also interested in post-colonial construction of African philosophical thought, effects of colonialism on African aesthetics, and the transformation of indigenous cultures through global engagement. 

James Crawford, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
jgcrawfo@ncat.edu

James G. Crawford was born in Lycoming Co., Pennsylvania in 1966. While growing up, he enjoyed wrestling, football, soccer, hunting, and snowmobile riding through the heightening Alleghenies. His junior year in high school, he decided that he wanted to teach History at West Point. He got Congressional nomination, but was not appointed to the military academy. Instead, he attended the Pennsylvania State University, from which he graduated summa cum laude with a B. A. in History. He continued his studies at the University of North Carolina, earning a doctorate in 2003. His dissertation was a study of U.S. soldiers sent to conquer the Philippines, 1898-1902. Dr. Crawford joined the NC A&T faculty in 2005. He and his wife, Maureen Ahmad, have one daughter, Elise. The family lives in Chatham Co., North Carolina.

Robert Drake, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
Course Coordinator (UNST 120)
rgdrake@ncat.edu 

Dr. Drake is an Assistant Professor in the University Studies Department at North Carolina A & T State University. For the past ten years he has worked as a faculty member and administrator at a small liberal arts college in upstate New York. His PhD focus was on modern international history and international affairs and present research interests center on the scholarship of teaching.

Dedra Eatmon, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
deatmon@ncat.edu

Dedra Eatmon teaches UNST 130, Analytical Reasoning, in University Studies. Dr. Eatmon holds a BS in Electrical Engineering and MS in Computer Engineering from North Carolina A&T State University and North Carolina State University, respectively. After working as a software engineer, Dr. Eatmon went back to school to pursue a Doctorate in Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. While completing her degree, she taught mathematics at the North Carolina School of Science & Mathematics. Dr. Eatmon has worked extensively with transformative programs that introduce minority students to academic research in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in hopes that they will pursue advanced research-based degrees. Her research areas of interest include investigating the academic ideologies of minority students, particularly as they pertain to mathematics education. She is also interested in factors that encourage successful secondary/post-secondary transition for minority students. 

Stephen C. Ferguson, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
scfergus@ncat.edu

Dr. Stephen C. Ferguson II is an Assistant Professor in University Studies. He holds a Bachelors degree in History and Philosophy with a minor in Black Studies from the University of Missouri-Columbia and a MA and doctorate in Philosophy from the University of Kansas. Dr. Ferguson has previously taught at Auburn University. Dr. Ferguson's area of expertise include Africana philosophy, Marxist philosophy ad social-political philosophy. His past publications have focused on the Black Marxist philosopher and activist C. L. R. James. He is currently working on a book-length philosophical critique of Afrocentrism, the dominant trend in African American Studies.

Galen Foresman, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
gaforesm@ncat.edu

Galen Foresman graduated with his Doctor of Philosophy in Applied Philosophy in 2008 from Bowling Green State University where he also completed his Master’s of Philosophy in 2004. He completed his Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy with honors and English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has been awarded the Louis I. Katzner Philosophy Graduate Assistant Teaching Excellence Award for his independent teaching at Bowling Green State University. 

Joseph Goeke, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
Course Coordinator (UNST 110)
jfgoeke@ncat.edu  

Dr. Joseph Goeke teaches UNST 110: Critical Writing. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of South Carolina, with a major in nineteenth-century American literature and a minor in creative writing. He is currently in the process of completing his first novel and seeking a publisher. Dr. Goeke was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. 

Wendy C. Hamblet, Ph.D., CCC Reg., SAC (Dip.)

Assistant Professor

whamblet@ncat.edu

Wendy C. Hamblet is a Canadian philosopher, alumnus of Brock University, Canada and Penn State University, USA. Hamblet is a specialist in genocide, Holocaust, and phenomenology of violence, as well as History of Philosophy and Continentalist Philosophy. She is the author of a number of books, including three monographs:

• The Sacred Monstrous: A Reflection on Violence in Human Communities (2004)
• Savage Constructions: The Myth of African Savagery (2008)
• The Lesser Good: Plato and Levinas on the Problem of Justice (2008)

Hamblet has also published dozens of articles in internationally recognized peer-reviewed journals such as Existentia Meletai Sophias, Ratio, Symposium, Prima Philosophia, and Eidos, as well as many chapters in professional anthologies such as Analecta Husserliana and the Open Court "Popular Culture and Philosophy" Series.

Hamblet is credentialed in Counseling and Philosophical Counseling and comes to A&T from a private practice in counseling, mediation, and Organizational Ethics consultancy in Ottawa, Canada. She received her training in Conflict Transformation from Johan Galtung, founder of Transcend Peace University (Netherlands), and is a member of the Transcend Network of Scholar Activists. She continues to serve in the international capacity of Therapeia Consulting and the Paul Maillet Center for Ethics as advisor and trainer in Anti-Corruption and Organizational Development.

Hamblet's current research centers about the problem of cultivating peaceful communities in an alienating industrialized and war-torn world. She is currently writing a new manuscript entitled Conceiving Evil: A Phenomenology of Radical Violence, which she hopes to complete this year (2009).

Randall Hayes, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
rdhayes@ncat.edu

Randall Hayes grew up in rural Kentucky, where daily observations of farm animals and wildlife kindled his interests in the natural world. He studied biology at the University of Kentucky and neuroscience at the University of Rochester in upstate New York. After a postdoctoral fellowship in computational neuroscience at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, he got hooked on teaching through leading a summer enrichment course for graduate students at Rice University. This experience began a teaching career that has spanned high school, community college, adult leisure learning, and online university courses.  Dr. Hayes taught as an adjunct at A&T for one semester before joining the University Studies faculty full-time in 2008. He currently teaches Analytical Reasoning and studies the dynamics of learning, or how information spreads through communities of students. He spends part of his summers with the North Carolina Governor’s School, a six-week enrichment program for high school juniors. He also volunteers with the Center for Inquiry-Based Learning in Durham as a TeacherLink Fellow, supporting science teachers in public schools in the Triad area. Other interests include vegetable gardening, sustainable consumer technology, and science fiction.

John F. Humphrey, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
jfhumphr@ncat.edu
http://jfhumphrey01.googlepages.com/home

J. F. Humphrey is an assistant professor with a joint appointment in the North Carolina Agricultural and Technological State University, Department of Liberal Studies and the Division of University Studies. His research interests are in the history of philosophy. He has published articles in ancient philosophy, nineteenth century philosophy, and critical theory in such journals as Convergence Review, Southwest Philosophical Review, and Nordicum-Mediterraneum. He has also published a translation of Joan Stambaugh's dissertation entitled Untersuchungen zur Problem der Zeit bei Nietzsche under the title of The Problem of Time in Nietzsche. Humphrey is a peer reviewer for Philosophical Frontiers.

Beth Kaufka, M.F.A., Assistant Professor
kaufkab@ncat.edu 

Beth Kaufka was born in Seoul, South Korea, but grew up in the Detroit area from infancy. She has a BA in English and a MA in Conflict Resolution from Portland State University, and a MFA in fiction from Bowling Green State University. She is deeply committed to interdisciplinary general education and spent four years in the Portland State University Studies program prior to coming to A&T. In addition to her love of fiction writing, her scholarship interests include: the scholarship of teaching and learning, composition and rhetoric, cultural studies, and all things pertaining to the well-being of oppressed power-minority groups. She has published a diversity of genres in varying national and international journals and magazines, including: The Portland Review, Mid-American Review, Poets & Writers, Colorado Review, Panini, 971 Menu, 13th Moon (story forthcoming), and Reflective Practice (article forthcoming). She is a 2007 winner of the AWP Intro Journals Award for fiction.

Barbara Pioro, P.E., Adjunct Associate Professor
pioro@ncat.edu

Barbara Pioro is an engineer, currently teaching Analytical Reasoning in the University Studies program. Professor Pioro’s research interests include: Educational Issues in Science, Mathematics, Engineering and Technology (SMET); Autonomous learning in life-long knowledge and skills acquisition; General education and its value across curricula; The scholarship of teaching; Thinking and problem solving; Human error; Human information processing; Human performance in complex systems.

Tanya Y. Price, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
typrice@nat.edu 

Tanya Y. Price earned her Ph.D. in Social/Cultural Anthropology from Indiana University, Bloomington in 1994, teaching Anthropology and African American Studies at various universities in the Midwest before coming to NC A&T in 2007. Her research interests include  tracing the relationships between cultures of the African Diaspora, traditional West African music, and the ramifications of race, cultural identity and public policy in the Americas and abroad.

Chad Rohrbacher has published poetry, interviews, and book reviews in periodicals and journals nationwide including Spillway, Faultline, Sunstone, New York Quarterly, Amelia, and others. He has won a Louisiana Division of the Arts Grant, the Tony Bill Award for Screenwriting, the Louise Gluck Award for Poetry, and an Ohio Arts Council Fellowship for poetry. He was named Master Teacher in 2006 by Chapman Learning Community and was a finalist for the Bowling Green State University Master Teacher award that same year. Because of his enthusiasm and knowledge for teaching and general education, he consults as a Program Reviewer for the Ohio Board of Regents. 

Philip F. Rubio, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of University Studies at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro is a historian teaching UNST 120: The Contemporary World. Dr. Rubio is a former factory worker, hospital worker, postal worker, labor organizer, and jazz musician. His forthcoming book to be published by the University of North Carolina Press in Spring 2010 is entitled There's Always Work at the Post Office: African American Postal Workers and the Fight for Jobs, Justice, and Equality. Dr. Rubio completed his doctorate in history in 2006 at Duke University, where he taught oral history courses from 2003-2007 as an adjunct instructor at Duke’s Center for Documentary Studies. From 2006-2007 he was Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of History at North Carolina Central University (NCCU), where he taught U.S., Latin American, Caribbean and World Societies survey courses, and previously taught there part-time since 2001, in addition to teaching the Civil Rights Movement seminar at North Carolina State University (NCSU) in the Summer 2006. Dr. Rubio's revised 1998 NCCU master's thesis became a book entitled A History of Affirmative Action, 1619-2000. Published by the University Press of Mississippi in 2001, it won the 2002 Outstanding Book Award from the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights in Boston. He has also written and delivered a number of papers on oral history, labor struggles, and the black freedom movement in the United States.

John Slade is a member of the Critical Writing Team with a secondary assignment with the African American Experience Team. He earned the bachelor’s degree in English and education from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the master’s in English and education with a concentration in African American literature from North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University, and the doctorate in education from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Dr. Slade’s professional experiences include teaching composition, literature, oral communications, and the freshmen seminar. In addition to teaching, he has held several administrative positions, including dean of arts and sciences at Forsyth Technical Community College and vice president and chief academic officer at Central Carolina Community College. He also worked as a reporter and assistant editor for an award-winning weekly newspaper; his efforts there earned a first-place writing award from the North Carolina Press Association. He has also been recognized for excellence in teaching and outstanding advocacy for freshmen students. Dr. Slade’s academic interests include the scholarship of teaching and learning (especially the clinical aspects of teaching writing), assessment techniques, and accreditation principles and practices. Other interests include reading (almost anything), movies, and golf. He and his wife, Pam, have a “forced” interest in NASCAR, by way of their son, JC. The Slades live in Winston-Salem.

Dr. Ron Steed is a Greensboro, NC, native and is a graduate of what is now Grimsley High School. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Duke University in 1964 and was awarded a National Science Foundation grant to continue his education at the University of Florida. Specializing in cryogenic heat transfer, he earned both a Master of Engineering degree (1966) and a Ph.D. (1968) in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Florida. His career in industry included more than 20 years with General Electric Company (GE) as both a development engineer and a technical manager in the lighting systems and power transformer businesses. Subsequent to GE he managed engineering and manufacturing operations in the power transformer, industrial diamond, and web processing machinery industries. He taught mathematics at Andrews High School in High Point, NC, for two years prior to joining the University Studies team in August, 2006.