New Faculty at Lyndon State
New Faculty at Lyndon State
Teaching in Education, Mountain Recreation Management, Criminal Justice, and Exercise Science.
September 10, 2013
This fall Lyndon State College welcomes four new full-time faculty members. The new faculty, along with new part-time faculty, are filling the shoes of retirees or adding strength to some growing academic departments.
Tara Fortner, Assistant Professor, Education, recently completed her Ed.D. in Learning, Leadership and Community from Plymouth State University. She has taught at the college level at Plymouth State University and Springfield College. She has worked as a diagnostic evaluator at the Stern Center for Language and Learning in New Hampshire, as well as at Innovative Dimensions in Ed Psych Services as an educational consultant/school psychologist. Fortner also spent a number of years as the school psychologist in several New Hampshire and New York school systems. She is proficient in sign language.
Benjamin Mirkin, Assistant Professor, Mountain Recreation Management, recently completed his Ph.D. in Education, with Outdoor and Experiential focus, from the University of New Hampshire. In addition to being a full-time employee at The White Mountain School as Director of their Outdoor Education Programs, Mirkin has taught at Plymouth State and the University of New Hampshire. He has also worked at Adventure Treks (based in North Carolina), and for the Appalachian Mountain Club. Mirkin is currently co-authoring two outdoor education books. He is also a member of the Pemigewasset Valley Search and Rescue team, as well as a member of the American Mountain Guides Association, the Association for Experiential Education, and the American Educational Research Association.
Brandon Stroup, Assistant Professor, Social Science/Criminal Justice received his Ph.D. from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania where he organized, created, and was the primary facilitator for the “Reading for a Change” program in the Indiana County jail. He looks forward to implementing this program at the Caledonia County jail. While at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Stroup was also an active member of the Criminology Graduate Student Organization and president of the Pennsylvania Prison Society, IUP Student Chapter, in which he involved undergraduate students in a campus-wide Justice Series event which dealt with contemporary issues within the criminal justice system.
Michael Soules, Visiting Assistant Professor in Exercise Science, will specialize in Physical Education. He has experience teaching lacrosse, soccer, baseball, basketball, and field hockey at the junior high and high school level. He is working specifically within the Physical Education/Teacher Education program.
New part-time faculty this fall are: Valentine Davis, Janet Edmondson, and Timothy Mikovitz in Music and Performing Arts; Richard Farnham, James Murphy, and Sam Orfanidis in Exercise Science; Allison Graham and Charles Wood in Mountain Recreation Management; and Jeanne Dickinson in Natural Sciences.