Maryville College
Maryville, Tennessee
Dr. Adrienne schwarte
Dr. Schwarte is currently a Professor of Design, and Coordinator of the Sustainability Studies Minor at Maryville College in Maryville, Tennessee. She earned an M.F.A. in Multimedia Design with an emphasis in Educational Psychology from the University of Minnesota and a B.A. in Communication and Art from Buena Vista University, and holds a Professional Certificate in Campus Sustainability Leadership from the Institute for Global Sustainability from the University of Vermont. She has worked as a graphic designer, photographer, consultant and communications specialist for over twenty years for companies across the U.S. She regularly presents at conferences on sustainability, including the International Conference on Climate Change, the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education Annual Conferences (AASHE), the National Conference and Global Forum on Science, Policy and the Environment (NCSE) and the Association for Environmental Studies and Sciences (AESS).
Dr. Ariane schratter
Dr. Schratter was born in Switzerland and lived in England before relocating to California. Dr. Schratter earned her BA in Psychology from California State, Sonoma, a MA in Psychology from California State University, Sacramento, and a Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from the University of Tennessee. She joined the Maryville College faculty in 2000. Dr. Ariane Schratter currently serves as Professor of Psychology as well as faculty liaison for Maryville College’s community engaged learning initiatives. She regularly teaches Child Development, Child Trauma and Resilience, Child Poverty and Inequality, and International Child Welfare all of which include community-engaged learning experiences. Her professional interests focus on serving children who have experienced trauma. Working with the Tennessee Department of Education, she is a Building Strong Brains trainer regarding the neurological, social, emotional, and behavioral effects of child trauma. She works closely with the University of Tennessee’s Human and Animal Bond in Tennessee (HABIT) program that brings human-animal interaction into many places including schools, courtrooms, and hospitals. She collaborates throughout the community for systemwide efforts to create trauma-sensitive schools and communities.
Dr. Carl Gombert
Carl Gombert was born in Brimfield, Ohio in 1959. He started taking painting lessons at the age of 14 with money he earned delivering newspapers. He earned a BFA in Drawing from the University of Akron and an MFA in Painting from Kent State University. Dr. Gombert worked as a stagehand before pursuing a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Fine Arts at Texas Tech University. He has exhibited in more than 200 shows throughout the country, and since 1993 has taught painting, drawing and art history at Maryville College in Tennessee. Visit his website to see his paintings and drawings.
Dr. Doug Sofer
Doug Sofer is an associate professor of history at Maryville, Director of Maryville College Works, and also the founding Coordinator of the Great Smokies Experience. Dr. Sofer was born just south of the Mason-Dixon line in the great Southern port of Baltimore and grew up in the New Jersey suburbs of New York City. He double-majored in history and philosophy and four years later with a BA in hand, he knew that he wanted to teach at a similar school and change his students’ lives the way that my own life was changed at Hartwick. He earned his Ph.D. in history from the University of Texas at Austin and joined Maryville College in 2006. He is thankful that he has been able to work in a career that he loves at a place that emphasizes the core values that made him passionate about learning in the first place. He teaches and studies the history of Latin America and the world, and he is a proponent of the transformative power of liberal arts education.
Dr. Philip Sherman
Dr. Phil Sherman is a native Tennessean–born and raised just outside of Kingsport, Tennessee. It was in a required course during the spring semester of his first year, Introduction to the Old Testament, that he found his calling and my passion. After graduating from Emory & Henry College with a double major in Religion and German Language and Literature, he went off to seminary and eventually pursued his doctoral degree at Emory University in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. While in graduate school, he was fortunate to serve several United Methodist congregations in the greater Atlanta area. He has a deep passion for biblical literature and is always happiest when talking about the Bible with students. Phil came to Maryville College in the fall of 2006. His scholarly interests focus primarily on the various ways in which Jews, Christians, and Muslims have read and interpreted sacred texts over the centuries. His dissertation, entitled Babel’s Tower Translated: Genesis 11 and ancient Jewish Interpretation, was published by Brill Academic. He is working on a number of projects related to the multitude of ways in which human beings think about and relate to the larger animal world.
Dr. Rebbeca LuCas
Dr. Lucas grew up in Corbin, Kentucky. She holds a PhD in Education from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She has former experience as special education teacher, homebound teacher for medically fragile students, educational diagnostician, grant writer, and parent educator. Her educational passions are related to technology in the classroom, working with first-year students, and the forest school initiative. Dr. Lucas has many special interests: school climate issues (especially for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students/faculty/staff), restorative justice in education, school to prison pipeline research, and other issues impacting marginalized students. Rebecca Lucas is an ally, activist, and advocate in the LGBT community. Much of her time and energy focuses on safe school initiatives, bullying prevention, promoting LGBT inclusive legislation, and creating opportunities for all community members to move equality forward. Rebecca’s reputation as a respected activist has earned her membership or an advisory board position with various organizations. She was awarded the Community Engaged Faculty award in 2021, served as Knox Pride Grand Marshal in 2017, and was recognized by Good Neighbors of Blount County as the 2015 recipient of the Spirit of Good Neighbors award—all honors especially valued as a long-time, social justice advocate conveying the importance of these values to pre-service educators.
Faculty Fellow Role
Review Tenure and Promotion Handbook Language at Maryville College and other institutions and develop list of activities that qualify as community engagement activities or desired activities/research within community engagement.
Continue efforts to support and expand the CEL faculty cohorts, including new trainings and support for faculty beginning the CEL process and for others who are more advanced in their work.
Create a portal for receiving and monitoring faculty community engagement (CE) activities and identify social media needs regarding CE activities.
Discuss public visibility and presentation of faculty CE work as part of MC web presence and track, encourage, and support the intersection of DEI and CE efforts.
Introduce discussion in the Faculty Personnel Standards Committee with the aim of revising written policies defining Professional Development to include a more explicit statement about Community Engagement.
Work on creating, integrating, and streamlining our emerging certificate programs and/or minors in community-engagement, civic engagement (i.e., Sense of Place), and global engagement.