Ondich, Raylor, Walker and Walser-Kuntz appointed to endowed chairs
Four Carleton College faculty members were appointed by the Board of Trustees to endowed chair positions.
The Carleton College Board of Trustees recently approved four faculty appointments to endowed chair positions: Jeffrey Ondich, John E. Sawyer Professor of Liberal Learning; Timothy John Raylor, Stephen R. Lewis, Jr. Professor of English and the Liberal Arts; Constance Hunter Walker, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of English; and Debby R. Walser-Kuntz, Herman and Gertrude Mosier Stark Professor of Biology and the Natural Sciences.
Ondich joined Carleton’s computer science department in 1991. He teaches courses in natural language processing, computer security, operating systems and numerical analysis, in addition to nearly all the required courses for the computer science major. Ondich co-designed the department’s team-based comps system and has advised over 25 comps teams since 2004. His professional work focuses on software development, such as Proloquo2go, an Augmentative Alternative Communication tool designed to help people with speech disabilities communicate using an iPad. Ondich has served as faculty president and co-chair of the Educational and Curriculum Committee, chair of the Academic Computing Advisory Committee and chair of the computer science department. Ondich earned a BA from St. Olaf College in 1983 and a PhD in mathematics from the University of Minnesota 1989.
The John E. Sawyer Professorship was established by Frances T. Vincent to honor a member of the faculty whose ability to mentor colleagues, whether in teaching, scholarship or service to the College, reflect the high standards John E. Sawyer set for himself and others.
Raylor joined Carleton’s English department in 1992. He teaches courses on Milton and Spenser, modernism, poetry and rhetoric at Carleton. In addition to having served on the Faculty Personnel Committee and as chair of the English department, Raylor sits on the editorial boards of several international journals, including Hobbes Studies, Marvell Studies and The Seventeenth Century. Hobbes is the focus of much of Raylor’s work today; he is currently completing a two-volume edition of Hobbes’s De corpore and related manuscripts for The Clarendon Edition of the Works of Thomas Hobbes. Raylor earned his BA from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1983 and his DPhil in English from the University of Oxford in 1987. He served as a British Academy/Leverhulme Trust Research Associate at the University of Sheffield before joining the Carleton faculty.
The Stephen R. Lewis, Jr. Endowed Professorship in the Liberal Arts was created to recognize President Emeritus Lewis’ exceptional leadership and to express the gratitude of the Carleton community for nurturing the tradition of stewardship.
Walker joined the English department at Carleton in 1982. Her course offerings at Carleton include rhetoric, British Romantic poetry and prose, Jane Austen and Irish literature. She has also led an off-campus studies program in London five times. Walker is currently working on a scholarly edition of 19th century Shetland writer Dorothea Primrose Campbell’s poems and stories, and on a biographical study based on the discoveries of her research. Walker has served as chair of the English department, the Library Committee and the Off-Campus Studies Committee, as well as co-chair of the Education and Curriculum Committee. Walker received a BA in English and drama from Allegheny College and a PhD in British literature at the University of Pennsylvania.
The William R. Kenan, Jr. professorship recognizes a faculty member whose enthusiasm for learning, commitment to teaching and sincere personal interest in students will broaden the learning process.
Walser-Kuntz joined Carleton’s biology department in 1995. She teaches on immunology, virology and genetics at Carleton, and also leads an off-campus study program centered on public health at the local and national levels. Her passion for equity in higher education led her to develop the Carleton Summer Science Fellows Program in 2008, which provides mentoring for underrepresented students at summer research programs. At Carleton, Walser-Kuntz has served on the Education and Curriculum Committee, the Community, Equity and Diversity Initiative, and as chair of the biology department. She obtained a BA from Concordia College, a Master of Arts in Teaching from Colorado College, and a PhD in immunology from the Mayo Graduate School.
The Herman and Gertrude Mosier Stark Professorship was established to encourage and support faculty in an active program of teaching and research with students in the natural sciences.