Three faculty – Rachel Ellett from Beloit College, Brian Caton from Luther College, and Memuna Khan from Ripon College – have been named to visiting positions on ACM off-campus study programs in Botswana, India, and Tanzania during the 2013-14 academic year.
Students and Program Director James Godde (right) in the field on the fall 2011 Tanzania Program.
Photo courtesy of Erin Frankson
“Our students will be in good hands with this group of engaged, experienced professors,” said Carol Dickerman, ACM’s Director of International Study Programs, in announcing the appointments. “Having faculty from ACM colleges directly participating in consortial programs is one of the ways that strong connections are maintained between the students’ academic experiences on their home campuses and at our program sites around the world.”
ACM visiting faculty positions are structured in a variety of ways, depending on the program. Ellett and Khan, who will serve as faculty directors in Botswana and Tanzania, respectively, will each teach a course, guide students in their independent projects, and lead field trips. As the faculty coordinating representative in India, Caton will take a key academic role at two points in the program, especially with the students’ projects, but will not stay in Pune for the entire semester.
All three professors will be closely involved in helping students get acclimated to their new surroundings at the beginning of the programs and will work with local faculty at the program sites to articulate the academic expectations of the ACM programs and colleges.
Rachel Ellett
A political scientist and chair of the African Studies program at Beloit College, Rachel Ellett will bring an extensive academic background and experience in Africa when she serves as faculty program director of the Botswana: University Immersion in Southern Africa program in spring 2014. Her education has spanned the Atlantic Ocean, as she received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Sheffield in the U.K. and did her graduate work in the U.S., with an M.A. and Ph.D. from Northeastern University.
Ellett’s scholarly interests focus on African courts and judicial power, and in the past decade she has made numerous visits to southern and eastern Africa for fieldwork and to conduct research throughout those regions. At Beloit, she teaches courses in international and comparative politics and in African studies, including Contemporary African Politics and Women and Politics in Africa. Read Rachel Ellett’s bio
Brian Caton
Brian Caton, Associate Professor of History at Luther College, teaches courses in Asian history – including those on South Asia – and environmental history, and he led January-term courses to northern India in 2006 and 2009. His interests in India, which began in high school, were the focus of his academic pursuits at the College of William & Mary and in his master’s and doctoral studies at the University of Pennsylvania.
As faculty coordinating representative for the India: Culture, Traditions, & Globalization program, Caton will be in Pune during the early weeks of the fall 2013 program to help the students settle in and get started on their independent study projects. He anticipates returning to the program later in the semester as the students are writing up their projects. Read Brian Caton’s bio
Memuna Khan
Ripon College biologist Memuna Khan has taken to the field to study wildlife in a variety of places, from egrets in Florida to Hawaiian crows to woodpeckers in North Carolina. When she is the faculty program director of the Tanzania: Ecology & Human Origins program in fall 2013, she will teach a course in research methods, guide students in their independent practicum projects, and lead the program’s six-week fieldwork phase, based at Tarangire National Park.
An associate professor at Ripon, she teaches courses in vertebrate zoology, ornithology, evolution, and scientific writing, and has led Ripon students on an off-campus program near the Boundary Waters in northern Minnesota. Khan went to college at the University of Chicago and received her Ph.D. from Virginia Tech, and she has research interests in behavioral ecology, the evolution of helping behavior, and the endocrinology of birds. Read Memuna Khan’s bio
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