College Names Professors Sue Behrens and Mark Ringer Distinguished Chairs

Susan Behrens, Ph.D.

Marymount Manhattan College created the Distinguished Chair award, funded by This is the Day, the Campaign for Marymount Manhattan College, as one of the highest honors it can bestow upon a faculty member. The Distinguished Chair is awarded to faculty whose scholarship has been widely recognized for its excellence and its purpose is to provide the time and resources that will allow awardees to produce major works in their discipline. 

Behrens and Ringer join Professor of Communication Arts Katie LeBesco, Ph.D., and Associate Professor of Art History Jason Rosenfeld, Ph.D., who were appointed Distinguished Chairs in 2009. 

“I am very excited to honor this opportunity with work that will benefit our students and bring even more recognition to MMC,” said Behrens, professor of speech-language pathology/audiology, “and I am thrilled to join Jason and Katie and Mark as Distinguished Chair holders.” 

Mark Ringer, Ph.D.

Behrens, who recently published her book, Grammar: A Pocket Guide, plans to work on two projects relating to grammar and the art of teaching. 

“I want to investigate what has happened to grammar lessons in high schools,” Behrens said. “My father diagrammed sentences daily (or so he says), I remember some grammar instruction, and now our first year students come to us with very little overt understanding of language structure. Where did grammar go? The second project is a series of videos that will be available on the Marymount Manhattan Web site, demonstrating what excellent teaching is and offering guidance to new faculty. I led a workshop a few years ago called ‘Stop the Lecture,’ offering alternatives to the traditional mode of instruction. I envision such training as part of a series of videos, resources for a faculty so devoted to excellent teaching.” “Being named a Distinguished Chair is a truly wonderful honor,” said Ringer, professor of theatre arts. “I am extremely happy to be given such a generous opportunity to concentrate on my next major scholarly project which will be my fourth book. As always, scholarship feeds my teaching at Marymount Manhattan and vice versa.” 

During the next three years, Ringer plans to conduct research and write his book, The Humanist Achievement of the Ancient Greek Theatre: Free Will, Necessity, and the State. He says the book will be the most comprehensive introduction to the practice and literature of the fifth century B.C. Athenian theatre yet written. 

“In the new book, I will be utilizing many of the critical trends in classical philology of the past decade which have been focusing necessary attention on the placement of Ancient Greek Tragedy and Comedy in their civic and performative contexts,” said Ringer, who is fluent in Ancient Greek and wrote his doctoral dissertation and first book about Sophocles. “Every surviving Greek play will be examined from the perspective of antiquity as well as the plays’ astonishing relevance for audiences and readers today. One of my goals with this book is to reassert the vitality of Classical Humanism and to refute the still frequently encountered cliché that the Greeks believed in a static, immutable ‘Fate.’ The Greeks invented the concept of free will, and their creation of drama during the same decades which led to their invention of democracy is not a coincidence.” 

As a Distinguished Chair Ringer will also have the opportunity to travel to Greece to see rarely performed ancient plays in the fourth century B.C. theatre at Epidauros. It will also provide him an opportunity to research at the library of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens. 

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: November 18, 2010