Three Women Appointed to Department Chairs at Syracuse University

The College of Arts and Sciences at Syracuse University in New York has announced the appointment of three women as department chairs.

Karen A. Doherty was appointed chair of the department of communication sciences and disorders. She has been a member of the department’s faculty since 1996. Dr. Doherty is a graduate of the University of Rhode Island, where she majored in communicative disorders. She holds a master’s degree in audiology from the University of Connecticut and a Ph.D. in audiology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Erin Mackie is the new head of the English Department at Syracuse. She previously served as department chair from 2008 to 2011. An expert in 18th-century British literature, Professor Mackie is the author of three books including Rakes, Highwaymen, and Pirates: The Making of the Modern Gentleman in the Eighteenth Century (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009). Professor Mackie is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University. She earned a master’s degree at the University of Delaware and a Ph.D. in English at Princeton University in New Jersey.

Vivian May was named chair of women’s and gender studies at the university. She has taught at Syracuse since 2002 after teaching at William Patterson University in New Jersey and Texas Woman’s University. Dr. May specializes in Black feminist thought and is the author of Anna Julia Cooper, Visionary Black Feminist: A Critical Introduction (Routledge, 2007). Dr. May is a graduate of McGill University in Montreal and earned a Ph.D. in women’s studies at Emory University in Atlanta.