UHV faculty members earn promotions, tenure
Ten University of Houston-Victoria faculty members were recently promoted with four receiving tenure and four becoming full professors.
The associate professors promoted to the rank of professor were:
- Jianjun Du, College of Business
- Mary Lasater, College of Education & Health Professions
- Justin Bell, College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences
- Elise Hendricker, College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences
The assistant professors promoted to associate professors and receiving tenure were:
- Feirong Yuan, College of Business
- Nicole Eugene, College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences
- Anthony Madrid, College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences
- Hardik Gohel, College of Natural & Applied Science
Lecturers promoted to senior lecturers were:
- Jacob Snyder, College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences
- Mai Abo Shakra, College of Natural & Applied Science
"Our faculty members are the foundation of UHV," said Joann Olson, UHV interim provost. "We are proud to recognize these individuals who have not only demonstrated excellence in teaching, research and service, but have also shown an ongoing commitment to the mission and values of UHV, and we look forward to their continued impact on our campus and beyond."
The promotions will take effect on Sept. 1. Faculty members who are hired as assistant professors at UHV can apply for tenure and promotion to associate professor after serving six years. After five years as an associate professor, they may be eligible for promotion to professor, though exceptional accomplishments can lead to earlier consideration.
The promotion review process takes nearly a year and begins with evaluations conducted by the dean of each school. The dean’s recommendations are then forwarded to the university’s Promotion and Tenure Committee to be assessed. The committee then sends its recommendations to the provost, whose recommendations are reviewed by the university president, the UH System chancellor and the UH System Board of Regents.
Jianjun Du teaches accounting. Some of the accounting courses he teaches include “Financial Statement Analysis,” “Advanced Accounting,” “Business Finance,” “Statistics and Research Methods” and “International Accounting.” He has received several awards, including a Fellowship Scholarship, the Academy of International Business Ph.D. student conference and consortium presentation award, and the Ph.D. student and young scholar conference consortium award from the Academy of Management. He is a member of the American Accounting Association, the Academy of International Business, the Academy of Management, the American Finance Association and the American Economic Association.
Mary Lasater has authored more than five training publications along with being a part of four national presentations and four state and regional presentations specializing in her field. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in secondary art education from the University of Texas in 1978. From there, she went on to earn her master’s degree in curriculum and instruction at UHV in 1987. In 1993, she earned her Doctorate of Education in curriculum and instruction from the University of Houston.
Justin Bell specializes in American philosophy and ethics. He teaches introductory philosophy courses in the core curriculum, ethics and period-specific humanities courses. Additionally, he directs the UHV Honors Program and is the Editor-in-Chief of Southwest Philosophical Studies. Bell was the 2017-2018 recipient of the UHV Teaching Excellence Award.
Elise Hendricker joined the UHV faculty in 2013 after earning her doctorate in school psychology from the University of Missouri. She completed both her predoctoral internship and postdoctoral fellowship with the Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District. She is experienced in working with students of all ages in various school and community settings, including alternative schools, early childhood programs and juvenile justice programs. She is a licensed psychologist and licensed specialist in School Psychology in Texas. Her recent scholarly work and conference presentations are focused on distance education in school psychology, strategies for family engagement in schools, and research on systems change and training competencies.
Feirong Yuan earned her Ph.D. in management from Texas A&M University in 2005. Prior to coming to UHV, Yuan served on the faculty at the University of Kansas, University of Texas at Arlington and Southern Methodist University. Her research focuses on individual motivation, interpersonal processes, and cross-cultural issues related to employee creativity and innovation. Some of the courses she teaches include “Staffing/Employee Development,” “Human Resources Management,” Human Capital Development” and “Staffing.”
Nicole Eugene received her Ph.D. from Ohio University in communications studies, her master’s degree in American cultural studies at Bowling Green State University and her undergraduate degree in sociology and art at Spelman College. Her dissertation, “Sleeping Everywhere: Narrating How People with Narcolepsy Navigate Everyday Life,” uses experimental performative writing to describe how people with narcolepsy experience specific spaces (i.e. home, work, driving and leisure). She is the winner of numerous awards, and her work has been supported by Ohio Humanities, a state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Anthony Madrid is the director of creative writing and teaches English and creative writing at UHV. He received his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, master’s degree at Columbia University, Master of Fine Arts at the University of Arizona and bachelor’s degree at Penn State. His publications include “I Am Your Slave Now Do What I Say,” “Try Never,” “There Was an Old Man with a Springbok” and “Whatever's Forbidden the Wise.”
-130x195.jpg)
Hardik Gohel is the Director of the graduate Data Science Program & Applied AI Research Lab at UHV. Gohel received his Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom in 2015. Gohel has extensive research experience in artificial intelligence, focusing on areas such as cyber test automation, smart bandages for bound monitoring, big data for security intelligence and cybersecurity for social media. His independent research aims to develop AI and cybersecurity solutions to improve human life.
Jacob Snyder graduated with a master’s degree in philosophy from Saint Catharine's College, Cambridge University, in Anglo-Saxon languages and literatures. From 2011-2018, he worked at Dalkey Archive Press, a nonprofit literary publisher specializing in translated contemporary literature. His academic interests include Old English language and literature, modern world literature, and contemporary American literature.
Mai Abo Shakra has been teaching a variety of computer science courses at UHV since 2011, which include introductory courses in computer science and database management class. Her interests include the theory of automata and algorithms. She received her master’s degree in computer science from New Mexico State University in 2011.
The University of Houston-Victoria, located in the heart of the Coastal Bend region since 1973 in Victoria, Texas, offers courses leading to more than 50 academic programs in the schools of Arts & Sciences; Business Administration; and Education, Health Professions & Human Development. UHV provides face-to-face classes at its Victoria campus, as well as an instructional site in Katy, Texas, and online classes that students can take from anywhere. UHV supports the American Association of State Colleges and Universities Opportunities for All initiative to increase awareness about state colleges and universities and the important role they have in providing a high-quality and accessible education to an increasingly diverse student population, as well as contributing to regional and state economic development.