SEC Academic Leadership Development Program honors four Ļć½¶Ö±²„faculty and administrators
Contact: Aspen Harris
STARKVILLE, Miss.āFour Mississippi State administrators and faculty members are selections for the 2023-2024 Southeastern Conference Academic Leadership Development Program Fellows.
Established in 2008, the professional development program has worked to identify, prepare and professionally advance over 500 academic leaders within the SECās 14 member institutions and beyond. The initiative consists of three componentsāindividual university development programs, workshops and a competitive fellowship program.
The honorees participate in fall and spring SEC-wide workshops at Texas A&M University and University of Missouri, respectively.
MSUās fellows include:
āSantanu Kundu, professor of chemical and petroleum engineering and Southern Ionics Chair in MSUās Dave C. Swalm School of Chemical Engineering;
āMelanie Loehwing, associate dean for academic affairs in MSUās College of Arts and Sciences and associate professor of communication and media studies in the Department of Communication;
āKaren Cordes Spence, director and F.L. Crane Professor in MSUās School of Architecture;
āRobert M. West, head of MSUās Department of Classical and Modern Languages and Literatures and professor in the Department of English.
Kundu joined MSUās Dave C. Swalm School of Chemical Engineering in 2012 as an assistant professor and is now professor and Southern Ionics Chair. Before joining MSU, he performed postdoctoral research at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. He has published more than 60 peer-reviewed journal articles and 20 conference proceedings. He also represents the Bagley College of Engineering in the Ļć½¶Ö±²„Faculty Senate and is involved in numerous K-12 STEM outreach activities.
As associate dean for academic affairs in MSUās College of Arts and Sciences, Loehwing oversees and manages the advising, degree audit, curriculum development, student success and recruitment efforts for the collegeās 27 undergraduate degree programs, 14 masterās programs and 9 doctoral programs. Previously, she served as the deanās administrative faculty fellow and assistant dean in MSUās Undergraduate Academic Affairs. Loehwing has published in numerous communication and political science journals, and her book āHomeless Advocacy and the Rhetorical Construction of the Civic Home,ā (Pennsylvania State University, 2018), was awarded the National Communication Associationās 2019 Diamond Anniversary Book Award.
Spence has served in higher education for over two decades and joined MSUās School of Architecture as director in 2021, teaching in the areas of architecture theory, design thinking and design studio. In her research, Spence aims to make the field of design and the ideas that shape it more accessible to students. Before joining MSU, she served as professor and associate dean at Missouriās Hammons School of Architecture. She holds professional licenses in Maryland and Missouri and has practiced in the Washington, D.C. area, Texas, Kansas, Arkansas and Missouri.
West is MSUās CMLL department head, and he has been a professor in MSUās Department of English since 2002. He was a key leader for the 2019 installation of MSUās Phi Beta Kappa chapter, in which he served as president from 2018-2022 and is now vice president. He also serves as the associate editor of āMississippi Quarterly: The Journal of Southern Cultures,ā MSUās academic journal dedicated to publishing scholarship on the southern U.S. His publications includeĀ āRobert Morgan: Essays on the Life and Work,ā co-edited with Jesse Graves (McFarland and Co., 2022), āThe Complete Poems of A.R. Ammons,ā (W.W. Norton and Co., 2017), and āConvalescent,ā (Finishing Line Press, 2011).
For more about the SEC Academic Leadership Development Program, visit .
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