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Trustees okay three academic appointments

Dec. 13, 2004

KALAMAZOO--Acting at their Dec. 10 meeting, Western Michigan University trustees approved the appointments of two associate deans and a department chair.

Trustees signed off on the appointments of Dr. Alexander Enyedi as associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, effective Dec. 20; Dr. Bassam Harik as associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, effective Dec. 1; and Dr. Joan F. Herrington as chair of the Department of Theatre, effective Dec. 20.

Alexander Enyedi, a faculty member since 1993, has been chair of the Department of Biological Sciences since 2001. He is a specialist in plant physiology and an active researcher who has received numerous grants and published more than 30 abstracts and journal articles on his work. He was the recipient of a 2000 WMU Alumni Teaching Excellence Award. Enyedi came to WMU from Rutgers University's Center for Agricultural Molecular Biology, where he served as a post-doctoral research associate from 1991 to 1993. He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Guelph's Ontario Agricultural College in 1981, a master's degree from the University of Guelph in 1985 and a doctoral degree from Pennsylvania State University in 1991.

Bassam Harik has been a faculty member since 1979 and chair of the Department of Economics since 2001. During the past decade, he has coordinated research that has produced three studies detailing WMU's economic impact on Kalamazoo County. His areas of specialization are money and banking, economic history and development, econometrics and mathematical economics. He also has been a faculty member at Central Michigan University and has worked as a research economist at the Arab African International Bank in Cairo. Harik earned a bachelor's degree from the American University of Beirut in 1970 and master's and doctoral degrees from Wayne State University in 1973 and 1978, respectively.

Joan Herrington joined the WMU faculty in 1996. Prior to teaching at WMU, she was a faculty member at the University of Redlands for two years. Her research focuses on the creative process of playwrights and directors and she has published extensively on the life and work of August Wilson. She also is editor of the theatre journal Theatre Topics. Earlier this year, she was co-director of "Women of Troy: Women of War," an acclaimed production by the University Theatre, which was performed in Scotland at the 2004 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Herrington earned her bachelor's degree from Wesleyan University in 1981, her master's degree from the City University of New York in 1989 and a doctoral degree from the University of California-Los Angeles in 1994.

Media contact: Cheryl Roland, 269 387-8400, cheryl.roland@wmich.edu

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