Study abroad director candidates to give public presentations

Two finalists for study abroad director will make campus visits and give public presentations the week of November 9, as follows:

Dr. Sylvia Atsalis
Monday, Nov. 9
10 to 11 a.m.
1320 Sangren Hall

Dr. Sylvia Atsalis is a primate researcher, published author, and higher education STEM specialist with 20 years of experience teaching, advising, grant writing, and offering professional development to students in STEM disciplines—nationally and internationally. In her current position at Northeastern Illinois University, she provides leadership, vision, strategic planning, and ideas for innovative professional development programming for the university’s Student Center for Science Engagement. She also works with colleagues to build capacity internationally through conservation leadership workshops for students in countries with tropical forest ecosystems. Atsalis’s dissertation examined the feeding ecology and aspects of life history in Microcebus Rufus (the brown mouse lemur) in Ranomafana National Park, Madagascar. Dr. Atsalis’s CV.

Dr. Lee M. Penyak
Thursday, Nov. 12
2:30 to 3:30 p.m.
2120 Sangren Hall

Dr. Lee M. Penyak is a professor of history and an associate member of Latin American Studies and Women’s Studies at the University of Scranton, where he served for eight years as director of the Latin American studies program. His dissertation examined criminality in late-colonial and early-modern Mexico, with an emphasis on sex crime. This research has led to publications on female confinement, the professionalization of obstetrics medicine, spousal abuse, male same-sex attraction, incest, and prohibited artwork in Mexico. Penyak’s additional research interests include the church and state and the hacienda complex, culminating in three edited works on these topics. Dr. Penyak’s CV.

For more information, contact Dr. Jane Blyth at (269) 387-3954 or jane.blyth@wmich.edu.