Faculty Earn Promotions, Tenure

After careful review of faculty applications for tenure and/or promotion, President Judson R. Shaver, Ph.D., agreed with each of the recommendations made by the Faculty Committee on Promotion and Tenure and Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty David Podell. The recommendations were presented to the trustees who unanimously made the following awards: 

Carrie-Ann Biondi, Ph.D., assistant professor of philosophy, was granted tenure and promoted to associate professor of philosophy. Biondi’s research interests include citizenship and immigration policy, virtue ethics, children’s rights, consent theory and political obligation, and philosophy of education (especially Socratic pedagogy). Her research also includes philosophy of literature (with a focus on the relationship between moral and aesthetic value) and the philosophy of death and dying. 

Cecilia Feilla, Ph.D., assistant professor of English, was granted tenure and promoted to associate professor of English. Her teaching and research interests include Restoration and 18th century literature, the early history of the novel, urban studies and women’s literature. Her current research focuses on the sentimental tableau in 18th century literature and visual culture. 

Jeffrey Morrison, M.F.A., assistant professor of theatre arts, was granted tenure and promoted to associate professor of theatre arts. He recently received a $25,000 grant from the Trust for Mutual Understanding to fund an international teaching exchange between Russian and American teachers of voice for the theatre, and will be traveling to Moscow in October to finish that project. He has been working as an experimental theatre artist for more than ten years, first as a student of Roberta Carreri of the Odin Teatret, and has created or collaborated in new works that have appeared in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Seattle, San Diego, St. Louis, Madison and Cleveland. 

Kevin Connell, M.F.A., associate professor of theatre arts, was promoted to professor of theatre arts. Connell serves as the President of the Faculty Council and Coordinator of Junior and Senior Acting. In the spring of 2008, he served as the College’s Acting Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs. Recent directing credits include J.B. Priestley’s Time and the Conways(2011), Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband (2010), and Oliver Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer (2009). 

Peter Naccarato, Ph.D., associate professor of English and chair of the Humanities Division, was promoted to professor of English. Naccarato’s teaching and research interests include twentieth-century British literature, literary theory and cultural studies. He has recently developed courses on Gay and Lesbian Literature and Literature and Human Rights. His recent scholarly work is in the area of food studies, focusing on the role of food and food practices in circulating ideologies and sustaining individual and group identities. With Katie LeBesco, Ph.D., professor of communication arts, Naccarato co-teaches COR 300: Edible Ideologies: The Politics of Food. 

Cheryl Paradis, Psy.D, associate professor of psychology, was promoted to professor of psychology. Paradis has approximately twenty years experience evaluating and treating individuals with severe and persistent mental illnesses in inpatient hospital settings. She is trained in cognitive behavioral treatment and has worked with individuals with anxiety disorders in outpatient settings. Paradis is also trained in psychodiagnostic and neuropsychological testing and has evaluated individuals with brain damage and dysfunction in psychiatric, medical and forensic settings. In 2010, she published The Measure of Madness: Inside the Disturbed and Disturbing Criminal Mind with Citadel Press. 

“These faculty colleagues have each demonstrated a very high level of achievement in teaching, scholarship and service,” President Judson R. Shaver, Ph.D., said in an e-mail message to the College community. “Their contributions to the College, our students and to their disciplines are impressive and worthy of our gratitude and respect. I congratulate each of these fine colleagues.” 

Marymount Manhattan College is an urban, independent, liberal arts college. The mission of the College is to educate a socially and economically diverse student body by fostering intellectual achievement and personal growth and by providing opportunities for career development.

Published: March 15, 2011