By: Katelyn Norris
This article is part of a series of profiles on the new faculty at Bellarmine University.
Bellarmine University has started off the fall semester with a few new faces in their faculty. BU’s College of Arts and Sciences has welcomed four new faces to their branch of the university.
Dr. Nathan Johnson is an Assistant Professor of Computer Sciences. Johnson has had a versatile career from journalism to working with the University of Louisville’s supercomputer.
This semester he will be teaching a various of courses in the computer science department, from entry-level classes to 300-level courses
“I will be teaching a wide variety of computer science classes. It’s a nice diversity to all the classes I teach,” Johnson said.
Johnson said expressed gratitude for how welcoming the BU community has been.
Johnson said: “The student body here at Bellarmine and the students in my classes are polite, respectful and funny, and they stay engaged. The students seem to really want to be here for what they want to study, and I’m really impressed with the culture here at Bellarmine.”
Dr. Jakia Marie is an assistant professor of sociology and will be teaching three classes this semester in anthropology and African American studies. Marie has a doctorate from the University of Louisville in Pan-African American studies.
Marie said she had never heard of BU until she got her doctorate while in Louisville, and from what she heard about Bellarmine, it was a great place.
“I wasn’t from here, so I didn’t know about it. It seemed like a really cool place to be. That’s how I became interested in it. Then an opportunity came up and I had to go for it,” Marie said.
Marie, like most professors this semester, is learning to adjust to the digital classroom landscape and all its challenges.
Marie said: “It has been abnormal with the being so distant and everything being virtual. It’s difficult to build a connections with people that you haven’t actually met yet. I think that overall the campus community is very supportive, and everyone has really been intentional about trying to make this work for everybody.”
Marie said her goal for the semester is to become more acclimated to campus and its students, as well as creating better relationships with faculty and students.
“I haven’t had too much interaction with them[faculty]. We had orientation in person but even if I saw like some people walking, I wouldn’t know who they are because of the mask,” Marie said. “We’ve had some meetings over Teams, I saw them virtually, but I need to physically see you then I can say I know that person.”
The new assistant professor of communication is Dr. Maggie Rossman. She has a focus in media studies with her doctorate research examining digital media fandom.
Rossman said she was very excited about the opportunity to teach at Bellarmine, because of the small size and its liberal arts focus. She also expressed interest in forming connections with her students due to the smaller classes.
“Someone told me Bellarmine is like a big hug. I had a big sense of community right away, and I still feel very welcome and part of the environment,” Rossman said.
Rossman said dealing with the pandemic struggles has impacted her new teaching environment. She wants the digital classroom to be as interactive as possible and make her classroom as engaging.
“It’s been my goal for this year to think outside of the box and learning from suggestions from students and learning how to do fun things with the technology,” Rossman said.
The Department of Criminal Justice is also welcoming a new face in that of Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice Studies, Dr. Kaitlyn Selman.
Selman received her doctorate in Criminology and will be teaching three classes this semester with a section being her doctorate namesake [Criminology]. She is excited to bring an applied teaching style to Bellarmine, due to most Criminology courses being theoretical in larger universities.
A Kentucky native, Selman recently moved back to the area due to Covid-19. She said she has been looking for a position at small liberal arts college and Bellarmine had an opening.
Selman said: “We would have not come back to teach anywhere else; we [she and her husband] would not have come back to teach at UofL [University of Louisville]. It was really serendipitous and really lucky that we did. We wanted to be back in this place.”
She said teaching so far this semester has been odd as she has been completely virtual for all her classes, but her students have been very welcoming.
“I don’t really have a relationship with any of the students and with us being online that can definitely be an impact, but the students have been very receptive and accepting,” Selman said. “It’s hard to be engaged with a professor you don’t know and it’s even harder when we’re online. They’ve been great, and that’s really helped ease the transition.”
