The Deliberative Pedagogy (DeeP) Faculty Collaborative was initiated in 2021 as a core component of the DCI’s Deliberation Across the Curriculum program. The Collaborative’s 2024-25 cohort includes 18 faculty from 15 different institutions and is the DCI’s fourth cohort thus far. The participants come from a wide range of institutions (including liberal arts colleges, state universities) and disciplines (including anthropology, biology, communication studies, economics and business, health sciences, Hispanic studies, history, mathematics, natural sciences, political science, psychology, sociology, and writing).
These faculty members are all committed to learning and implementing new ways to improve and deepen the quality of their class discussions. They will be spending the year studying and discussing different deliberative pedagogy methods, sharing their ideas and questions with one another, and working to embed deliberation in their classrooms.
Learn more about each Collaborative member below…
Abril Jimenez is an Assistant Professor of Hispanic Studies at Davidson College in North Carolina. She is a linguist with a Ph.D. in Bilingualism and Second Language Acquisition from Rutgers University. Her research focuses on Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics, especially Spanish and Portuguese as heritage, second, and third languages from a syntactic and lexical perspective. Additionally, she studies the complexities of linguistic interfaces (i.e., how the core components of the language faculty interact) when pragmatics is involved. Her work on vague language and ironic speech addresses the pragmatics-semantics and pragmatics-prosody interfaces, respectively. She teaches a variety of linguistics courses (such as Intro to Hispanic Linguistics, Bilingual Communities, The Bilingual Mind, US Spanish, and The Anthropology of Language) and recently became the director of the Self-Instructional Languages Program at Davidson College. She is a member of the Bilingualism Matters International Board and has extensive experience doing community outreach and promoting research-informed conversations about the social, academic, and cognitive benefits of multilingualism.
Alberto E. Morales is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Global Studies and Modern Languages at Drexel University. Morales works at the intersections of biotech sciences, multispecies relations, racial formations, global health equity, and the geopolitics of knowledge production. His first book, Designs on Natureculture: Esperanza, Multispecies Collaboration, and Planetary Health, examines Latin American scientists’ political strategies to redress neglected, systemic issues of health, poverty, and environmental ruination through multispecies experiments on biodiversity. Based on long-term ethnographic research in Panamá, Designs on Natureculture examines biotech laboratory workers and government policy officials’ investments in science, technology, and innovation as sustainable forms of national development. Morales draws on his interdisciplinary background in Latin American Studies, Medical and Environmental Anthropology, and Science, and Technology Studies to analyze how precarity, absence, and hope are lived and experienced in techno-scientific communities across Latin America. His research has been supported by the Social Science Research Council, the National Science Foundation, and the Newkirk Center for Science and Society. Prior to joining Drexel University, Alberto E. Morales was a Postdoctoral Research Associate and Lecturer in the Program for Latin American Studies and the Department of Anthropology at Princeton University.
Brandon Inabinet is a Professor of Communication Studies at Furman University. His background includes training in the history of rhetoric and communication ethics, and his research interests include deliberation in the Roman and early American republics. More recently, his scholarship and service have revolved around southern regionalism and universities reckoning with slavery, including chairing Furman University’s Task Force on Slavery & Justice and publishing its report, “Seeking Abraham.” Courses taught include Rhetoric & Strategy, Advocacy, Argumentation, and Global Advocacy. On the latter, Inabinet also leads a number of study away programs that investigate how communication processes deal with conflict and trauma, including the Holocaust in Europe, the genocide in Rwanda, and apartheid in South Africa. Despite all these obvious overlaps with this collaborative, he has yet to teach deliberation strategies or facilitation in his courses, and hopes to integrate this across the major.
Candice Thomas has recently joined the biology faculty at Hendrix College and primarily teaches Human Anatomy and Physiology, Nutrition, and Senior Seminar courses. She received her PhD in nutrition from the University of Kentucky, after which she completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Texas A&M Health Science Center. It was during her postdoctoral fellowship that she fell in love with teaching and decided to move away from research science and embrace teaching. Candice is passionate about nutritional sustainability, and she is currently working with students, faculty, and staff to create a modified food forest on the Hendrix campus. In her classes as well as her research, Dr. Thomas pushes back on some of the common misconceptions surrounding nutrition and food equity as well as disparities in healthcare. In the spring semester of 2025, she will be teaching a senior seminar course in the health sciences program and looks forward to diving into some of the controversies surrounding healthcare. Candice loves the rich diversity of backgrounds and unique perspectives of her students and looks forward to applying what she learns in the Deliberative Pedagogy (DeeP) Collaborative to her courses.
Daina Nathaniel is a Professor and the Chair of the Department of Communication and Art at Wingate University in Wingate NC. A native of Trinidad and Tobago, her research interests center around culture, identity, nationhood, and digital inclusion. Most recently she has been exploring how the Caribbean diaspora use social media to create a sense of connection to their various homelands. Her primary research area is cultural studies which looks at the relationships between cultures within societies, marginalized communities, issues of power and domination, the postcolonial experience, issues of race and ethnicity between disparate groups, and all the attendant challenges that arise as people try to find a sense of place within their various environments: home, school, work, church, community and online. She has taught a variety of courses including Intercultural Communication, Political Communication, Communication in American Popular Culture, Persuasion and many Journalism courses. She regularly directs the Capstone for graduating seniors, which provides students with the opportunity to showcase what they have learned about the Communication discipline, as well as to give back to the community through service, most recently, contributing to The Living Archives Project in Charlotte.
Gina Amatangelo is a Professor of Practice in Public Administration at the University of Texas at San Antonio and Associate Dean of the Honors College. She brings depth of experience as a facilitator, strong community connections, and 20 years of experience as a public policy practitioner to her work with UTSA students. Her focus on building students’ skill in dialogue stems from a desire to prepare future public servants to listen and engage meaningfully with constituents and impacted communities. Professor Amatangelo teaches courses on public policy research, public administration, and civic leadership and has been recognized for leading exemplary community-engaged and career-engaged projects. She was a 2021 recipient of the University of Texas Board of Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award. Amatangelo is committed to supporting a culture of teaching excellence and currently chairs UTSA’s Academy of Distinguished Teaching Scholars. She will soon be inducted as a fellow in the University of Texas System Academy of Distinguished Teachers, the highest teaching honor the UT System bestows. Amatangelo holds a Master of Public Affairs from UT Austin and a Bachelor of Arts in Media Studies from Penn State University.
Fangzhi He grew up in a rural village in one of China’s most underdeveloped regions, where the pursuit of education significantly improved her quality of life compared to many of her peers. Despite her father’s illiteracy and her mother’s limited schooling, they prioritized providing basic education for their children. Since her undergraduate years, Fangzhi He has been intrigued by the concept of “identity,” particularly due to her distinctive background in attire and accent compared to her urban peers. She has observed how identity profoundly influences individuals’ lives, both positively and negatively. Her fascination with the intricate relationship between learning and identity has grown over time, as she has keenly studied how cultural and social identities shape literacy practices and influence individuals’ integration into different social groups. Having worked in the United States after completing a significant portion of her education abroad, Fangzhi He possesses a deep understanding of the challenges faced by international students. Leveraging her extensive experience as a writing consultant and professor, she is well-prepared to offer comprehensive support to multilingual students at Davidson College. Fangzhi He finds great fulfillment in guiding and supporting these students on their academic journeys, demonstrating her commitment to their success.
Ja’Nya Jenoch is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Sociology at Rollins College. She teaches statistics & data analysis, introductory sociology, race and ethnic relations, sociology of the family, sociology of film, and a sociocultural history of Black American music. Ja’Nya previously taught sociology, psychology, and criminal justice courses at Valencia College, the University of Central Florida, and Stetson University. She has a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Central Florida (Orlando, FL), a master’s degree in Clinical Psychology from St. John’s University (Jamaica, NY), and a Bachelor of Science degree from McGill University (Montreal, Quebec). Her primary research interests are in family policy with an emphasis on maternity leave. She was a 2020 Early Career Fellow with the Work & Family Research Network (WFRN), and a 2023 Associated Colleges of the South (ACS) Teaching & Learning Fellow. As the recipient of a Rollins College Critchfield Grant, she conducted a mixed methods study using an intersectional lens to examine the maternity leave experiences of marginalized mothers. Ja’Nya serves as the project manager for a global organization focused on increasing female representation in tech and fostering knowledge and implementation of responsible AI.
Jasleen Kohli’s teaching and research interests center around themes of movement, migrations and identity. Her current areas of research are Memory Studies and Literary Translation. Her most recent work explores the interplay of utopian spaces and dystopic realities and masculinity issues in Latino literature. She enjoys teaching courses on Latin American Women Writers, Translation Studies, Life Writing. As an educator at an HBCU, she is especially interested in implementing design thinking in the classroom so students can be more actively involved in their own learning experiences through reflection and dialogue. She enjoys creating student-centered intercultural experiences on her university campus and in the local community.
José Manuel Batista is an Associate Professor of Spanish in the Department of Languages and Culture Studies, and an affiliate faculty member of the Latin American Studies Program as well as the Africana Studies Department. He earned a PhD in Romance Languages from UGA in 2003. He served as the graduate director of the MA Spanish Program at UNC Charlotte from 2011-2013 and, most recently, served on the Executive Committee of the College Language Association for three years from 2020-2023. His research interests include Spanish Caribbean literature, film and culture; Spanish American poetry, and Latin American thought. Recent courses Dr. Batista has taught include LTAM 3309 Masterpieces of Hispanic Literature in English Translation: “The Poetics of Encounter in Hispanic Verse,” and SPAN 6007 Advanced Studies in Spanish American Literature: “The Darkening of Dominican Literature.” His latest article publication, “The Whitewash of Blackface in Fernando Perez’s José Martí: El ojo del canario,” appeared in The Latin Americanist. Currently, Dr. Batista is exploring the epic genre and its relationship to the Afro-Hispanic tradition.
Kalynda Smith is a social psychologist and faculty member at North Carolina A&T State University in the Department of Psychology. She received her BA in Psychology and English at Truman State University in Kirksville, MO and her MS and PhD in Social Psychology at Howard University in Washington, DC. Dr. Smith does STEM education research on several interdisciplinary teams with a focus on improving the academic outcomes for Black and Brown students across STEM disciplines. Dr. Smith has recently begun a research program in health social psychology with a focus on the health outcomes of Black American women. In the classroom, Dr. Smith teaches Social Psychology and other cultural psychology-related courses, and also has experience in teaching research methodology and graduate school/career preparation courses.
Kate LeCroy is an Assistant Professor at Rhodes College in Memphis, TN. Kate received her Ph.D. from the University of Virginia documenting native bee species declines and elucidating drivers of bee species losses. She joined the faculty at Rhodes College after serving as a postdoctoral research fellow at Cornell University. Kate studies the ecology of native and introduced solitary bees, including their health outcomes across urban, agricultural, and natural landscapes with the help of community scientists and undergraduate researchers. At Rhodes, Kate serves as an instructor for introductory courses such as introductory organismal biology and introduction to environmental sciences, as well as teaching advanced biology courses such as conservation biology and plant ecology.
Kelly J. Whitmer is Professor and Chair of the History Department at Sewanee: the University of the South. She teaches courses in the history of science, medicine, youth culture, education and early modern (European/world) history more generally. Her first book, “The Halle Orphanage as Scientific Community: Observation, Eclecticism and Pietism in the Early Enlightenment,” was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2015. It is a place-based study of an influential academic organization in the University of town of Halle, Germany, founded around 1700. She has published on several related topics, including the collecting practices of Halle Pietists in southern India, the history of projects, child prodigies, and the concepts of play and utility in early modern knowledge economies. Most recently she held an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Experienced Research Fellowship at the University of Göttingen; she is now finishing up a new book about science and the “power of youth” in early modernity that she developed while in residence there.
Kristen Thompson is an Associate Professor of Physics at Davidson College where she teaches physics, astronomy, and first-year writing courses. As an astrophysicist, her research focuses on determining the strength of magnetic fields throughout the Milky Way Galaxy using some of the largest telescopes in the world and studying properties of peculiar pulsating binary star systems. In addition to teaching and research, Kristen is passionate about engaging the community in astronomy through outreach and public events. Originally from Ohio, Kristen completed her undergraduate studies at Mount Union College before completing her Ph.D. in physics at the University of Kentucky. Her other interests include spending time outdoors, gardening, traveling, and watching NASCAR and college football.
May Mei is a Professor of Mathematics at Denison University, as well as the department chair. She received her PhD from the University of California, Irvine and her BA from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research involves the application of dynamical systems to mathematical physics. Additionally, she has worked on integer sequences and Happy Numbers, the Game of Life, the epistemology and cognitive science of mathematics, and modeling mollusk growth. In addition to being an engaged and enthusiastic instructor who treats teaching as a craft and hones her pedagogy intentionally, Dr. Mei is deeply committed to the principles of shared campus governance and is Chair of the Faculty.
Michelan Wilson is a microeconomist with research interests in environmental and natural resource economics and environmental justice. Michelan received her Ph.D. in Economics from Colorado State University and a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the University of the West Indies in Jamaica, where she grew up. Michelan’s research and teaching are driven by her experience growing up in a small island developing state, that is highly dependent on its natural resource base and vulnerable to environmental degradation. The goal of Michelan’s teaching is to encourage students to develop their analytical skills and to creatively apply economic concepts to a wide variety of real world questions/problems.
Sally Bullock has more than 15 years of experience in public health research and evaluation. Her research focuses on identifying, analyzing, and reducing health disparities in rates of chronic diseases, such as diabetes and heart disease. Specifically, her work focuses on public and institutional policies as both sources of and solutions to such health disparities, which are influenced by social and behavioral factors. She is interested in learning whether and how policy initiatives aimed at increasing access to healthy food and creating environments that are optimal for health can be successfully implemented and lead to a reduction in health disparities. Dr. Bullock has worked in academia, a research and consulting firm, and in government, which provides her with a valuable set of applied and cross-sectoral perspectives that inform both her teaching and research. At Davidson College, she has taught several interdisciplinary public health courses that have included a strong focus on the social determinants of health and health disparities. She received a Ph.D. from the Gillings School of Global Public Health at UNC Chapel Hill, a master’s degree in Public Health from the School of Public Health at UC Berkeley, and an undergraduate degree in Biology from UC Davis.
Vincent Russell, PhD is an Assistant Professor and the Liberal Studies Program Coordinator in the Department of Communication at Western Carolina University, where he teaches courses on intercultural communication, interpersonal communication, and public speaking. A critical ethnographer who employs community-based research methods, his research (a) emphasizes communication activism for social justice scholarship, which involves communication scholars intervening collaboratively to aid marginalized individuals, activist groups, and community-based organizations to obtain social justice; and (b) explores deliberation practices and processes engaged in by people pursuing collective action. He is the author of 13 peer-reviewed journal articles, including publications in the Journal of Applied Communication Research, Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies and Annals of the International Communication Association; and five chapters in edited scholarly books. He has received 16 awards/honors, including the Mônica Pombo Early Career Teaching Award from the Carolinas Communication Association and, from the National Communication Association, the Outstanding Dissertation Award from the Critical and Cultural Studies Division, the Best Dissertation Award from the Ethnography Division, and the Dr. Rozell Duncan Award for Excellence in Experiential Learning Research from the Experiential Learning Division. His scholarly commentary has appeared in The Atlantic, The Brennan Center for Justice, and other outlets.