CAHSS Welcomes Several New Faculty Members

Honggang Yang, Ph.D., dean of NSU’s College of Art, Humanities and Social Sciences (CAHSS) is delighted to welcome several new faculty members to the college: Jessica Muniz-Collado, M.F.A.; Kandy G. Lopez, M.F.A.; Whitney Lehmann, Ph.D.; Janine Morris, Ph.D.; and Aileen Miyuki Farrar, Ph.D.

Kandy Lopez, M.F.A.

• Kandy G. Lopez, M.F.A. has been appointed as assistant professor in the Department of Performing and Visual Arts (DPVA). She received her M.F.A. in Art with a concentration in Painting from Florida Atlantic University. She received a B.F.A. in Painting and a B.S. in Marketing and Management from the University of South Florida.

As a visual artist, Lopez explores constructed identities, celebrating the strength, power, confidence, and swag of individuals who live in urban and often economically disadvantaged environments. With a variety of mediums, her images develop a personal and socially compelling visual vocabulary that investigates race, the human defense mechanism, visibility and armor through fashion, and gentrification. Lopez wants her artwork to help educate, communicate, and foster uncomfortable topics that we seem to look past or avoid in our multi-cultural society. Representing individuals within poor communities in the US, these portraits help her, as a female Afro-Dominican American, come to terms with the way she too has to adopt and perform identities of survival.

Lopez’s work has been exhibited in several galleries and museums. Recent exhibitions include: Delray’s Spady Cultural Heritage Museum; the Girls’ Club; Broward College Rosemary Duffy Gallery; Yeiser Art Center; Lincoln Center Fort Collins; Cape Cod Museum of Art; Gallery 51-Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts; Santa Fe’s Gallery 901; Armory Art Center; and Palm Beach International Airport. Lopez has served on the studio art and design faculty at Daytona State College and Florida Atlantic University.

Jessica Muniz-Collado, M.F.A

• Jessica Muniz-Collado, M.F.A. has been appointed as assistant professor in the Department of Performing and Visual Arts (DPVA). She received her M.F.A. in Music Composition from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She received her B.M. in Percussion Performance from the University of Miami.

Muñiz-Collado is a published and commissioned composer. Her compositions have been reviewed by Percussive Arts Society: Percussive Notes Magazine and have been performed throughout the United States, Canada, Afghanistan and Argentina. Notable performers include: members of the Diane Moser Big Band; legendary jazz tubist Howard Johnson; the Callithumpian Consort percussion trio; members of Bang On A Can and Asphalt Orchestra; the Lethbridge Symphony Orchestra (Alberta); and the Spokane New Music Ensemble.

Muñiz-Collado has worked as a media composer for large-scale media projects, including several Fortune 500 companies and a Super Bowl commercial. Muñiz-Collado composed music for MundoFox’s television series Los Golden Boys (produced by Oscar De La Hoya and Mario Lopez), award-winning COPILOT Music, Killer Tracks Production Music, Odyssey Earth Films, award-winning N.N. Media Productions, Open Door Film Productions, award-winning INC24 iMagination productions, and award-winning director Luis Argueta.

In addition, Muñiz-Collado has performed and recorded with numerous musicians and artists including Grammy-nominated saxophonist Steve Elson, jazz vibraphonist Arthur Lipner, Cookie “Conga” Lopez, Anders Astrand, Jean Geoffroy, Ney Rosauro, and trumpet all-star John Walsh. She has also performed throughout North and South America, toured with the FROST Percussion Sextet in Japan, and was a guest lecturer and performer at the international music conference LeRock & L’Amour held at the Universite Paul-Valery in Montpellier, France.

Prior to this appointment, Muñiz-Collado served as a Visiting Assistant Professor in DPVA, teaching courses in composition, music production, and percussion. She directed the Mako Band, NSU Pep Band, and managed NSU Mako Records.

Whitney Lehmann, Ph.D

• Whitney Lehmann, Ph.D. has been appointed as an assistant professor in the Department of Writing and Communication. She earned a Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Miami in 2015 and received an M.A. in Print Journalism from the University of Miami and a B.S. in Journalism from the University of Florida.

While completing her doctoral degree, Lehmann taught Writing for Public Relations and Social Media Writing and Campaigns for the Strategic Communication Department within UM’s School of Communication. Her independent research explores higher education public relations and social media efforts, and her dissertation examined how college-bound students use social media during the college choice process.

For the past year, Lehmann served as the public relations manager for Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida, where she managed public relations for the property at large, including its food and beverage outlets and Hard Rock Live concert arena. In addition to her work with Seminole Hard Rock, Lehmann worked as a Web/social media writer and communications coordinator for Barry University and as a reporter for Neighbors at the Miami Herald.

Janine Morris, Ph.D

• Janine Morris, Ph.D. has been appointed as an assistant professor in the Department of Writing and Communication. She received her Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature with a specialization in Rhetoric and Composition and a certificate in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from the University of Cincinnati. She received her M.A and B.A. in English Language and Literature from the University of Windsor.

Morris’ research interests center around changes to communication practices in light of digital technologies. Drawing on new media, genre, and reading studies scholarship, her dissertation examined how students’ reading practices change with different devices and situations, and demonstrated that reading is a complex process shaped by material conditions and shifting variables. She has presented her work at the annual Conference on College Composition and Communication, and the biennial Feminisms and Rhetorics Conference.  Her scholarship has appeared in the College English Association (CEA) Critic; Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, and Composition, and Culture; Computers and Composition; Composition Studies; and Community Literacy Journal.

Additional research interests include the history of rhetoric; women, gender, and sexuality studies; and composition theory and pedagogy. Morris secured university grants to support her scholarship and attended professional development institutes such as Dartmouth College’s Annual Summer Seminar for Composition Research and the Ohio State University’s Digital Media and Composition Institute. She was awarded the 2015 University of Cincinnati Excellence in Teaching Award for the College of Arts and Sciences. She has taught residential and online undergraduate courses in composition, technical and science writing, digital composing, and women’s rhetorical history.  Morris was also an editorial assistant for the journal Composition Studies from 2013-16.

Aileen Miyuki Farrar, Ph.D

• Aileen Miyuki Farrar, Ph.D. has been appointed as assistant professor in the Department of Literature and Modern Languages. She received her Ph.D. in English from the University of Louisiana. She received her B.A. in English with minors in psychology and history from Tarleton State University before beginning graduate school as a Fellow.

Farrar’s research and teaching expertise is highly interdisciplinary, focusing on Victorian and Romantic British literature, with particular interest in science and the environment in literature and the humanities. She has published articles in the Journal of Ecocriticism and Victorians: A Journal of Culture and Literature, and her work is galvanized on the interconnectedness of science and the humanities. Her dissertation was titled, The Silver Lining of Literature and Science: Spectral Reflections of Philosophy-Physics in Nineteenth Century British Epistolary Novels.

Prior to joining NSU, Farrar was a lecturer of humanities in the department of comparative cultural studies at Northern Arizona University.  She will be teaching literature and medical humanities courses during the coming year.