We've Got Some News...

We're very pleased to announce that, as of the beginning of the Fall 2008 semester, REL's Assistant Professor Tim Murphy will have a new rank: as a tenured Associate Professor.

Tim came to the University of Alabama in August of 2002 and teaches courses across the curriculum; although specializing in theory (specifically, semiotics), his teaching and research cover a broad number of areas--from Existentialism and the history of atheism to the religions of native Americans and Hatian Vodou.

Congratulations, Tim!

We'd also like to announce that Ms. Merinda Simmons, currently a doctoral student in UA's Department of English, has been hired as an Instructor for the 2008-9 academic year.

Although she will initially teach sections of REL 100 and 105, her specialty--which includes Afro-Caribbean and African American women writers, as well as southern US studies--will surely find a place in the Spring 09 course listing. Her dissertation, which is nearing completion, looks at gender and labor in narratives about women's migration from the Caribbean and the American South.

Also worth noting is that, come the end of the Spring 2008 semester,Associate Professor Ted Trost has hit the decade mark here at UA.

Prof. Trost--the Undergraduate Advisor for REL--was hired in the Fall of 1998, into a 3/4 appointment in our Department and a 1/4 appointment in New College.

Congratulations, Ted!

And if you thought that a decade was something... Ms. Betty Dickey, the Department's Administrative Secretary, has now worked at the University of Alabama for 20 years. Who knows the stories she has to tell of life in the Department over these years....

Any student who walks into her office knows that she is the heart of the Department. (They'll also know how much she likes plants!)

Thanks for everything, Betty!

Coming soon: news on a new, one year hire for 2008-9...