Vice Chancellor and Provost Michele G. Wheatly has announced the appointments of faculty members Dennis Kinsey, Brian Lonsway and Melissa Luke to serve as Provost Faculty Fellows.
Kinsey is director of the Doctoral Program and Public Diplomacy Program and professor of public relations in the Newhouse School. During his two-year appointment, he will help to spearhead an initiative to develop and implement a faculty e-portfolio system.
Lonsway is associate professor and chair of the graduate program in the School of Architecture. He will assist in identifying and facilitating the development of conflict-resolution processes that support University policies and best practices.
Luke is associate dean for research and a Dean’s Professor in the Department of Counseling and Human Services in the School of Education. Her area of focus will be on programs associated with ongoing professional and career development for faculty, broadly speaking.
Dennis Kinsey
“The University is committed to supporting and elevating our faculty members to allow them greater opportunities for growth and development and expanded ways to highlight their excellent work in research and teaching. We are also committed to creating a welcoming, equitable and inclusive campus, dedicated to the well-being of our faculty in all settings,” Wheatly says. “Dennis, Brian and Melissa will be charting critical work that will impact their colleagues across campus. I appreciate their time and energies on each of these significant areas.”
Kinsey will lead a group to select a vendor and help develop a product that will bolster efforts to streamline the faculty review process. The tool will highlight faculty members’ distinctions and help them tell their unique stories. Wheatly has discussed this initiative in her University Senate remarks.
“I am honored to serve the University that I love,” Kinsey says. “I am grateful to Provost Wheatly for this opportunity and look forward to working with Syracuse University faculty and staff on this important project.”
Kinsey, who earned a Ph.D. at Stanford University and a master’s and bachelor’s degrees at Kent State University, is an expert in political communications, communications theory, public diplomacy, public relations research methods and Q methodology. Kinsey, who was previously with Decision Research Corp., has been published in the Journal of Advertising Research, Journalism Educator, Operant Subjectivity, Political Communication and Political Psychology.
Through Lonsway’s work in identifying conflict-resolution processes, schools and colleges will be able to either deploy these processes on their own or use in concert with the University policies on faculty misconduct. A former chair and member of the University Senate Committee on Academic Freedom, Tenure and Professional Ethics, Lonsway has an understanding of the need and worked with other University Senate members during his term on changes to the policy regarding inappropriate conduct by faculty members.
Brian Lonsway
“I’m honored to contribute to faculty leadership in this critical area of our professional responsibilities. Maintaining healthy and respectful workplace cultures in institutions of higher education is essential to our intellectual and educational missions,” Lonsway says. “I hope that together with colleagues across the University we can advance our support of these values through policies and procedures that have a truly meaningful impact.”
Lonsway earned an M.Arch at Columbia University and a B.A. in architecture at Washington University in St. Louis. A designer and theorist, Lonsway’s research operates at the intersection of experience design and design technology: its history, theoretical bases and implications, educational models and social practices. He is author of “Making Leisure Work: Architecture and the Experience Economy” (Routledge, 2009); is co-designer with Kathleen Brandt of the award-winning Einhorn 21st Century Studio in the School of Architecture; has published chapters in several books; and has presented widely at conferences across a range of disciplines, including architecture, anthropology, computer science, design, science and technology studies, and sociology.
With the momentum of the Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence established last year, Luke will engage with faculty across campus to develop and implement programming that will augment and extend professional support for teaching excellence and classroom instruction. This will include programming to assist faculty in their efforts to create greater work-life balance, creating a culture of mentorship, promote inclusion and further develop leadership and scholarly skills. Luke’s work will help refine and reimagine the portfolio of the previous Center for Faculty Leadership and Professional Development, which was established as a means to institutionalize the programming developed through the SU ADVANCE program. SU ADVANCE was funded by the National Science Foundation from 2010-17 and supported similar efforts for women in STEM disciplines in concert with the Women in Science and Engineering (WiSE) program.
Melissa Luke
“It is an honor to serve Syracuse University as a Provost Faculty Fellow, and I am inspired by this opportunity to support interconnected campuswide initiatives focusing on faculty development, diversity and leadership,” Luke says. “I look forward to guiding the expansion of institutional structures that will build capacity and facilitate a trajectory of continued success at Syracuse University, as well as to working with faculty across all disciplines and career stages to realize their professional goals. I am committed to bolstering multidimensional efforts that recognize the significance of teaching and learning, inclusion and equity, as well as research, leadership and mentoring in faculty excellence.”
Luke earned a Ph.D. in counselor education at Syracuse University, an M.S. in school counseling services at SUNY Oswego, an M.A. in liberal studies at SUNY Brockport and a B.A. in English and psychology at the University of Rochester. She has more than 15 years of experience working as both a teacher and counselor in PK-12 public schools. Luke’s expertise includes school counseling program implementation, professional identity development, and globalization of school counseling, as well as school counselor supervision, with a particular focus on group pedagogies. Her scholarship reflects her commitment to preparing future counselors in working with underrepresented clients, including those who are the first in their families to attend college and LGBTIQ+ students.
