Rural Studies - Faculty

Dr. Bonnie Asselin	Dr. Erin E. Campbell
Dr. Jordan Cofer	Dr. Cyndy Hall
Dr. Sandra Giles	Ms. Wendy Harrison
Dr. Joseph G. Njoroge	Ms. Etta Lee
Dr. Niles Reddick	Mr. Keith Perry
Dr. Jewrell Rivers	Ms. Becca Turner
Dr. Bobbie Robinson	Mr. Andrew P. Wright
Dr. Susan Kirby Roe
Mr. Hans Schmeisser
Dr. Su Senapati
Dr. Darby Sewell

Dr. Bonnie Asselin, Assistant Professor of English, will be teaching Literature of Rural America for the first time this fall (2010). She thinks that the Rural Studies program offers a fascinating way to understand history and the relationship we have to the land and is looking forward to hearing how students respond to the material. She received her Ph.D. in English from Northeastern University. While she loves Tifton’s fall harvests, mild winters, and super spring blooms, she always looks forward to school breaks at her Massachusetts home where she enjoys deep snow in the winter and cooler weather for gardening in the summer.

Dr. Jordan Cofer earned his MA in English at Virginia Tech and PhD at Texas Tech. His research and teaching interest lie in Southern Studies, American literature and Religion and Literature. He has published essays in various books and journals such as The Flannery O’Connor Review and The Southern Quarterly. He teaches the Introduction to Rural Studies Course, the advisor to the Rural Studies Club and teaches in the Rural Life Learning Community. He lives in Tifton with his wife, Rebecca, and dog, Fitzgerald. He loves to watch college football and eat his wife’s cooking since he is a terrible cook.

Dr. Sandra Giles holds a Ph.D. in English, specializing in Creative Writing and Rhetoric/Composition. She was active in designing the new Writing and Communications Track for ABAC’s Rural Studies Program and is a faculty co-advisor to the Pegasus literary magazine. She’ll write poetry if she has to, but her first writing loves are fiction and creative nonfiction—in other words, storytelling, whether true or not. She’s also into yoga, singing, gardening, and the best of the vampire books (you know which ones).

Dr. Joseph G. Njoroge is a professor of Political Science, and the interim head of the department of History & Political Science. He holds graduate degrees in Political Science with emphasis in international relations, research methods and in public administration, a background that has given him an opportunity to contribute to the burgeoning Rural Studies program. He has been involved in the Rural Studies program right from the beginning, and teaches two courses: an introductory course in research methods, and an advanced seminar in Rural Public Program Analysis. His hobbies include reading political philosophy, playing tennis and travelling.

Dr. Niles Reddick grew up in the small town of Hahira, Georgia. He graduated from Valdosta State University with a B.A. in Philosophy, University of West Georgia with a M.A. in Psychology, and Florida State University with a Ph.D. in Humanities and an emphasis in English and Literature. His dissertation, Eccentricity as Narrative Technique, included interviews with Lee Smith, Clyde Edgerton, and Janice Daugharty. Reddick taught English and Psychology at Thomas University in Thomasville, Georgia, and Georgia Military College at Moody AFB, Georgia, before accepting an English teaching position at Motlow College in Lynchburg, Tennessee. At Motlow, he coordinated the Writer’s festival and secured such renowned writers as Michael Lee West, Manette Ansay, Jerry Bledsoe, and Sharyn McCrumb. Reddick lives in Tifton with his wife Michelle, children Audrey and Nicholas, and two dogs, Harper Lee, named for the author and Anna Appolonia, named for his great-great-great-great-great aunt.

Dr. Jewrell Rivers has been teaching at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College for approximately 9 years and currently holds a B.S. in Psychology from Valdosta State University, a M.S. in Sociology from Valdosta State University and a Ph.D. in Family Relations from Florida State University. Since its inception, Dr. Rivers has been actively involved in the Rural Studies Program. Dr. Rivers was one of the original faculty members to serve on the Rural Studies Committee. He developed the first sociology courses for the major including rural sociology and rural demography. He is an active participant in the Rural Sociological Society (RSS) which is one of the premier professional organizations in Rural Studies.

Dr. Bobbie Robinson is Professor of English and Dean of the School of Liberal Arts. She received the PhD at Baylor University, deep in the heart of Texas. She has been closely associated with the Rural Studies program since its inception as a glimmer on the horizon at a summer administrative retreat several years ago. A highlight of her career was teaching the first Rural Studies class at ABAC. Having bounced around a good bit while her husband completed a career as an Army officer, she spends an inordinate amount of time planning the next big trip and devising ever new schemes to finance it. She has 3 children who love the academic life also and 2 current cats, Bill Annette and Gwyneth Fred. She walks 3 brisk miles at 5:30 or 6:00 every morning and is an avid reader of techno-thrillers and Nazi fiction and history. Rural life is in her blood.

Dr. Susan Kirby Roe, Associate Professor of Voice, was included from the adoption of the Rural Studies program at ABAC, lending her expertise to music courses for the program. Growing up in the “lowcountry” of South Carolina with a father who was a barbeque restaurant owner and farmer by hobby, she was raised knowing the musical tastes of the South and its culture. Having earned graduate degrees in vocal pedagogy and voice performance with an emphasis in musicology, Dr. Roe is excited about teaching American Music for the Rural Studies program. Her interests include teaching the high school senior Sunday School class at First Baptist Church of Tifton, reading good books, and listening to and performing music. She also enjoys doting on her husband, Wayne, and daughter, Catherine, as well as their three pets. Diana, the blind and deaf cocker-spaniel, Beau, the frisky maltipoo, and Sassi, the cat rescued from ABAC, frequently make her feel like a modern-day Noah. You can always find her trying to plan a trip to Disney World, NYC, or Europe.

Mr. Hans Schmeisser, Professor of Political Science, has just completed his first year at ABAC and is excited to be involved with the Rural Studies Program. Currently finishing his Ph.D. in American Government and Institutional Development from the University of Florida, he is committed to bringing a political twist to the major. Born to bleed orange and blue, he is a die-hard Gator and lives for Saturday SEC football. His wife, Shelly, is a Tifton native and cheers for that other team.

Dr. Su Senapati, Professor of English and ABAC’s Study Abroad coordinator is excited to be part of the Rural Studies program. With her graduate degrees in English and her expertise is in world literature and world cultures, she sees an undeniable connection between the study of world cultures and rural cultures. Having taught several women’s studies courses in the past she sees the need for a balanced study of the international and the national, the patriarchal and the matriarchal, and the urban and the rural.

Dr. Darby Sewell, Dean of the School of Human Sciences, joined the ABAC faculty in 2002 as a faculty member in Family and Consumer Sciences. She is an ABAC Alumnus and received her M.Ed. from the University of Georgia and her Ph.D. from Iowa State University in Family and Consumer Sciences Education and Studies. The discipline of Family and Consumer Sciences uses an integrative approach to examine the relationships among individuals, families, and communities and the environments in which they function. By applying an integrative approach to the examination of everyday, practical problems, the profession seeks to improve the well-being of individuals, families, and communities. Dr. Sewell is excited about incorporating this approach into the Rural Studies curriculum when she teaches FACS 4100 Community Context of Individual and Family Well-Being.

Dr. Erin E. Campbell, associate professor of English and Rural Studies, chaired the committee that developed the Rural Studies degree program. She is a Faulkner and Southern Culture scholar, as well as maintaining expertise in British Renaissance literature and culture, with an emphasis in the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. She delights in discovering the connections between Southern and British social constructions of identity. She remains bemused by the inability to find properly prepared grits in the state which claims grits as its official food.

Dr. Cyndy Hall, an Assistant Professor in the dept. of Language and Literature, has lived in both urban and rural areas, from Boston and Chicago to rural upstate New York and California’s fertile Salinas valley. With an advanced degree in American Literature and in Realism and Naturalism, it is no surprise that Cyndy will bring the study of Rural Fiction to the program, offering a course that addresses the spring-boarded interdependence of both rural and urban iconography, an interdependence that promotes mythical fictions not only in literature but in pop culture, art, advertising, music, history, politics, and just about anywhere one sees or hears images depicting rural space. In 2008 Cyndy and her dog Molly made ABAC and Tifton their home and have currently taken on an exciting new project in their eighty year old cottage downtown.

Ms. Wendy Harrison, assistant professor in the School of Liberal Arts, is a newcomer to the Rural Studies Program, but not to rural studies. From a childhood spent in a small South Georgia town and a college degree in journalism financed by many hot summers as a peanut scout to newspaper jobs covering rural affairs and agriculture, she has been awash in rural. She still gets excited counting deer on the edges of peanut fields while jeep riding at dusk, and seeing wild turkeys rise up always makes her heart beat faster. She teaches a course in professional writing because her background in public relations and communications allows her to share real-world experience about life outside of college. She presides over a household that includes one husband, two daughters, two dogs, and five cats, a lively combination indeed.

Ms. Etta Lee will be teaching Psychology in the Rural Community. The Rural Studies Program will enable people to deal with issues that are formed and influenced by the environment i.e., weather, terrain, and physical structures, economy, inherent characteristics, and often pronounced individualism of the rural population. The Psychology course will interrelate with the Sociology courses and other courses in the Rural Studies Program. For example, the Sociology courses will explain the social structure, but the Psychology course will explain the behaviors of the individuals who make up these structures.

Mr. Keith Perry, Interim Department Head of Fine Arts and Communication, was a member of the committee that initially developed and proposed the Rural Studies program. He has a Master's degree in Communication and a Bachelor's degree in Interpersonal Communication with a minor in Multicultural Anthropology. He teaches the Intercultural Communication Rural Studies course. He is a film buff, pop culture aficionado, volunteer firefighter and enjoys traveling and undertaking various home improvement projects.

Ms. Becca Turner was born and raised in the south and is proud that rural Georgia roots continue to impact her life. She received her Master’s degree in Mass Communication with an emphasis in Public Relations and Non-profit Management and her Bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Communication - both from the University of Georgia. A third generation UGA College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences graduate, she bleeds red and black. Drawing on her experiences in the field, Becca enjoys bringing a practical perspective to the classroom as she teaches the Professional Communication Methods course. Becca and her husband, Richie, call Moultrie home with their two children, Carolyne and Ret. Becca and her family enjoy the excitement of Friday night Packer football, cheering for the Bulldogs on Saturdays, and competing in the livestock show ring throughout the year.

Mr. Andrew P. Wright, Assistant Professor of History & Religion, served on the Rural Studies committee that developed and started the program. He teaches the Religion in Rural America class, along with US History & Georgia History. Prof. Wright was born & raised on a small family farm in Irwin County, served in the US Army before attending college. He is a trained Blacksmith & loves his country life. He enjoys spending time with his wife & 2 children, hunting, fishing, camping & he is a very active Freemason.