Kent R. Bales, age 76, of Minneapolis, passed away October 8th, 2012.

Kent was born in Anthony, Kansas in 1936 to Irene Brinkman and Roslyn Francis Bales. He moved to Salt Lake City in 1948 where his mother died one year later. He earned an academic and athletic Scholarship to Yale University where he played football and graduated with a degree in American Studies in 1958. That summer he met and married Maria Gyorei of Hungary, his wife of 54 years.

After receiving his PhD from the University California - Berkeley, Kent joined the Department of English at the University of Minnesota in 1967 where he taught American Literature for 41 years. He also served as the chair of the English department twice, as director of graduate studies, as director of undergraduate studies, as chair of the Senate Joint Committee on Faculty Affairs and chair of the Senate Joint Committee on Faculty Appointments. Kent was awarded the prestigious Fulbright Scholar Award twice and went on to serve on the National Fulbright Committee.

He was a wonderful professor, effective administrator, and devoted husband and father. Survived by his wife, Maria; daughter Liza (David) Lee and son Tom (Tiziana) Bales, five grandchildren and many other loving family members and good friends. A private celebration of his life will be held in the coming weeks. Memorials preferred to the Alzheimer's Association or the Sierra Club.

Welcome and good luck to our new chairs and directors. Thank you for taking on these important leadership roles. (alphabetical by department)

Keith Mayes, chair, African & African American Studies
Kevin Murphy, chair, American Studies
Jean O'Brien, chair, American Indian Studies
Ron Greene, interim chair, Communication Studies
Chris Phelan, chair, Economics
Bruce Braun, chair, Geography
Alejandro Baer, director, Holocaust and Genocide Studies
Erika Lee, director, IHRC
Andrew Scheil, director, Medieval Studies (beg. spring semester)
Monica Luciana, chair, Psychology
Liz Boyle, chair, Sociology
Carol Klee, chair, Spanish and Portuguese Studies

Welcome to our new faculty colleagues.

Congratulations to the following faculty members for achieving tenure and/or promotion over the summer (alphabetical by department).

Kale Fajardo (American studies), confer tenure & promote to associate professor
Roderick Ferguson (American studies), promote to professor
Matthew Canepa (art history), confer tenure & promote to associate professor
Louis Mendoza (Chicano studies), promote to professor
Alex Jassen (classical and Near Eastern studies), confer tenure & promote to associate professor
Mary Franklin-Brown (French and Italian), confer tenure & promote to associate professor
Kurt Kipfmueller (geography), confer tenure & promote to associate professor
Carol Hakim (history), confer tenure & promote to associate professor
Malinda Lindquist (history), confer tenure & promote to associate professor
Patricia Lorcin (history), promote to professor
Sumanth Gopinath (music), confer tenure & promote to associate professor
Alan Love (philosophy), confer tenure & promote to associate professor
Ben Ansell (political science), confer tenure & promote to associate professor
Timothy Johnson (political science), promote to professor
Colin DeYoung (psychology), confer tenure & promote to associate professor
Cheryl Olman (psychology), confer tenure & promote to associate professor
Rich Lee (psychology), promote to professor
Traci Mann (psychology), promote to professor
Lisa Park (sociology), promote to professor
Rachel Schurman (sociology), promote to professor
Benjamin Munson (speech-language-hearing sciences), promote to professor
Marcus Dillard (theatre arts and dance), confer tenure & promote to associate professor
Michael Sommers (theatre arts and dance), confer tenure & promote to associate professor

Emeritus Professor Homer Eugene (Gene) Mason (Philosophy) died June 13. He was especially interested in the writings of Kiekegaard and Wittgenstein, along with justice and ethics. Read his obituary.

Emeritus Professor Herb Mohring (economics) died June 4. If you've ever paid to use the HOV lanes on I-394, you have him to thank. Read his obituary.

Emeritus Professor Edward Coen (economics) died August 27. Read his obituary.

Congratulations to the following civil service/bargaining unit employees who are celebrating milestone work anniversaries this year. Thank you for your service to the University and CLA!

Sean Burns (CLA-OIT): 20 years
Robert Wozniak (CLA-OIT): 20 years
Mary Wilcox (Economics): 25 years
Catherine Bach (Economics): 30 years
Mary Hildre (School of Statistics): 30 years
Daniel Pinkerton (Center for Austrian Studies): 30 years
Bonnie Williams (Geography): 30 years
John Easton (CLA-OIT): 35 years
Kerry Mc Indoo (French and Italian): 35 years
Margery Pickering (Psychology): 35 years
Lonna Riedinger (Student Services): 35 years
Beatrice Dehler (Communication Studies): 40 years
Charlene Hayes (Institute for Global Studies): 40 years
Linda Springer (Psychology): 40 years

A message from Dean Jim Parente:

Today the College of Liberal Arts and the University mourn the loss of Professor Judith Martin, who passed away early Monday morning.

Judith Martin was a home-grown jewel at the U. She received her M.A. in American history and M.A. and Ph.D. in American studies here at the U. She began her service here as a research associate in the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs in 1976, and held various term positions in CLA until she was hired as a professor in geography and director of the Urban Studies program in 1989.

Judith was an exemplary University citizen, one who senior administrators knew they could depend upon for thoughtful leadership and counsel. Her CV is filled with work on committees across the University, many of which she served as chair or vice-chair: Faculty Consultative Committee, University Senate, Senate Committee on Finance and Planning, and countless other committees on governance, planning, teaching, and students. She was an invaluable member of CLA's 2015 planning committee last year, and this year served on the provostal search committee.

Dr. Janet D. Spector, professor emerita, former assistant provost, and groundbreaking scholar of gender studies and American archaeology, died September 13 at her home in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She was 66.

Meet our new faculty here. Or meet them in person at the CLA Assembly meeting on Tuesday, September 27.

Services were held on April 9 for Tom Proehl, producing director in the Department of Theatre Arts and Dance, who died on April 5 of natural causes at age 46. He came to the U last August after working at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco for 2 1/2 years.

Three titans of the CLA fiscal and HR operations will retire in early January. Toni Ziegler, Peggy Buckley, and Kathleen Post have a combined 108 years of service to the University. Toni came to the U in 1967 and started out with a brief stint in the history department. In the last 40 years she has worked various positions in only two departments, African American studies (as it was known then) and CLA fiscal administration. Peggy has been with CLA a mere five years but has the most varied U experience among our three: four years in admissions and records, four years with facilities management, and 22 years with the Extension service prior to coming to Johnston Hall. Kathleen's 30 years here have been about evenly split between Continuing Education and Extension (as it was known then) and CLA fiscal.

Toni and Peggy will be recognized at a party in their honor on Tuesday, December 7 from 2:30 to 4:30 in the lobby of the Ted Mann Concert Hall. All are welcome. Kathleen is planning a quieter exit. All three have made invaluable contributions to the success of the college during their time here. As they leave us we wish them a happy and long retirement, and thank them for their decades of outstanding service and camaraderie.
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Andrew Williams is the new Director of Diversity Student Support Programs in the College of Liberal Arts Student Services. Andrew came to the University of Minnesota several years ago with a stellar record of intercultural education and service to diverse student populations. Most recently he has served as the interim assistant director of the Access to Success Program, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Program, and the McGuire Academic Program in the College of Liberal Arts. Assistant dean Chris Kearns says, "My colleagues and I continue to be impressed with Andrew's passion, vision, and principled commitment to undergraduate education, student development, and institutional improvement."

The Department of Sociology has welcomed two visiting scholars this year. While they do not have official positions here, they are doing work in the department and are interested in making connections with other scholars in CLA.

Carolyn Liebler is a new assistant professor in Sociology. She was left out of our announcement of new tenure track faculty in error.

Welcome to our new visiting faculty members, whose presence in CLA will enrich our intellectual community. Their appointments here range from a single semester to multiple years.

Poet Josie Rawson is the Creative Writing Program's 2010-11 Minnesota Writer of Distinction, made possible by the Edelstein-Keller Endowment.

Read more from the Star Tribune.

Welcome to our new tenure track and tenured faculty members! Join us for the first CLA Assembly meeting of 2010-11 on September 28 (3:30 p.m. in the Cowles Auditorium, Humphrey Institute) to meet our new colleagues and to learn more about their work. Faculty listed alphabetically by department.

Professor Michael Dennis Browne retired this spring after teaching creative writing and poetry in the Department of English since 1971. Professor Brown was honored with the Horace T. Morse-University of Minnesota Alumni Association Award for Outstanding Contributions to Undergraduate Education, the CLA Arthur "Red" Motley Exemplary Teaching Award, and the College of Continuing Education Distinguished Teacher Award. He also won Minnesota Book Awards for his collections Selected Poems, 1965-1995 and You Won't Remember This: Poems. A librettist, he and composer Stephen Paulus were nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for their oratorio To Be Certain of the Dawn, which was recorded by the Minnesota Orchestra and released on Bis Records. He continues to collaborate with Paulus and is working on new poetry and essay collections.

Professor Edward Griffin retired this spring after 44 years with the Department of English. During his tenure, Professor Griffin was honored with the University of Minnesota Award for Distinguished Contributions to Post-Baccalaureate Graduate and Professional Education, the CLA Arthur "Red" Motley Exemplary Teaching Award, and the Ruth Christie Distinguished Teaching Award in English. Specializing in 17th and 18th century American literature, Griffin is working on a biography of loyalist Reverend Mather Byles and an edited collection of the letters of Byles' daughters, who died in Boston in 1835 and 1837, still loyal to the British crown.

Beverly Atkinson (MA 1971), Associate Director of Undergraduate Studies in English and academic adviser, retired in May; she advised undergraduate students in English since 1973. Atkinson won the CLA P/A Academic Staff Award and the Outstanding Advisor Award from the National Academic Advising Association. She helped to form the Academic Advising Network at the University in the mid-'80s. She has published widely on advising and teaching. In her last spring at the U, she spearheaded the successful creation of the First Annual English Undergraduate Conference.

Congratulations to the following faculty members, who received promotions effective July 1.

Assistant Professor to Associate Professor
Keith Mayes, AAAS
Kieran McNulty, Anthropology
David Valentine, Anthropology
Jenny Schmid, Art
Andrea Stanislav, Art
Diane Willow, Art
Shaden Tageldin, CSCL
Omise'eke Natasha Tinsley, English
Joseph Johannes Arun Saldanha, Geography
Giancarlo Casale, History
David Chang, History
Tracey Deutsch, History
Sarah-Jane Mathieu, History
Helena Pohlandt-McCormick, History
Gabriela Ilnitchi Currie, Music
Roy Cook, Philosophy
Teresa Toguchi Swartz, Sociology
Eric Grodsky, Sociology

Associate Professor to Professor
Jennifer Pierce, American Studies
Josephine D. Lee, English
Monika Zagar, GSD
Jean O'Brien-Kehoe, History
Barbara Welke, History
David Damschroder, Music
David Samuels, Political Science
Monica Luciana, Psychology
Andrew Oxenham, Psychology
Elizabeth Boyle, Sociology
Fernando Arenas, Spanish and Portuguese Studies
Kathryn Kohnert, SLHS

It is with deep sadness that the Department of Geography reports the death of Associate Professor Roger Miller from medical complications due to a motorcycle accident he experienced in mid-May. Roger passed away on May 30, 2010. Roger had been with the geography department since the early 1980s, and his untimely loss has jolted faculty, students and staff in the department. Since 2006 he has also been the director of graduate studies in the MLS program and has taught for a number of units across campus.

A "Celebration of Roger's Life" will be held on Sunday, September 19 at the Weisman Art Museum. More information can be found on the Geography website.