Korina Jocson, associate professor in the College of Education at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst was named the Visiting Research Chair of Human Rights and Social Justice at the University of Ottawa in Canada. Dr. Jocson is the author of Youth Poets: Empowering Literacies In and Out of Schools (Peter Lang Publishers, 2008).
Dr. Jocson holds a bachelor’s degree and a Ph.D. in language, literacy, and culture from the University of California, Berkeley, and conducted postdoctoral research at the School of Education at Stanford University.
Meenakshi Gigi Durham, a professor of journalism and mass communication and a professor in the Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality program at the University of Iowa, was given the added duties of associate dean for outreach engagement for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. She joined the faculty at the University of Iowa in 2000.
Dr. Durham is the author of three books including The Lolita Effect: The Media Sexualization of Young Girls and What We Can Do About It (Overlook Press, 2008). She holds a Ph.D. in journalism and mass communication from the University of Florida.
Tiphanie Yanique was named associate professor of English and granted tenure at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. She is the author of two novels including Land of Love and Drowning (Riverhead Books, 2014) and the poetry collection Wife (Peepal Tree Press, 2015).
A native of the U.S. Virgin Islands, Professor Yanique is a graduate of Tufts University in Massachusetts. She holds a master of fine arts degree in creative writing from the University of Houston.

Professor Vonnahme is a graduate of Iowa State University. She earned a master’s degree in animal science from Oklahoma State University, and a Ph.D. in reproductive physiology from the University of Wyoming.

Dr. Rosenblith is a graduate of Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania. She holds a master’s degree in experimental education from Minnesota State University and a Ph.D. in educational policy studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.


