Neet Named Department Head for Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
University of Minnesota, Crookston (UMC) officials have selected Sharon Neet, D.A. and professor of history, to serve as department head for the UMC Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Department.
Neet holds a Doctor of Arts in Recent U.S. History from the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND. She also holds a Specialist in Education in History Education and a Master of Arts in Recent U.S. History, both from Pittsburg State University, Pittsburg, KS. Her Bachelor of Arts in History is from Washburn University, Topeka, KS.
Neet has been a member of the faculty at UMC since 1990. Her research and teaching interests lie in the areas of rural development and non-Marxian socialist reform publications (1885-1920). Teaching responsibilities at UMC have included courses in recent U.S. history, national and comparative government, Minnesota history, cultural pluralism in American history, and Western civilization surveys, among others.
Neet has published numerous articles, papers, abstracts, and book reviews. Topics have ranged from her research of the Appeal to Reason, a progressive, socialist newspaper of the early 1900s recognized for its impact on public opinion and policy, to the use of interactive multimedia and computer software technology to improve teaching and learning in higher education. This coming June she will present “A Business History of the Appeal to Reason, 1895-1914,” at the Business History Conference at the University of Nottingham in England.
Recently, Neet co-authored a grant funded by the University of Minnesota’s civic engagement initiative, the Council on Public Engagement (COPE), to support “Beyond the numbers: finding and engaging community energy in very small towns.” The interdisciplinary study involving business, agriculture, and the humanities proposes to identify success factors that make small communities and “community” (in the social sense) sustainable and successful in rural Northwestern Minnesota.
“Dr. Neet’s experiences at UMC and her knowledge of general education and the disciplines housed in the arts, humanities and social sciences make her an excellent choice for this position,” said UMC Chancellor Velmer S. Burton, Jr.
The announcement of department heads at UMC caps a six-month discussion of academic restructuring for the campus. The goal of the process, according to Chancellor Burton, was to take the current academic administrative structure and align it more closely to the kinds of structures one would see at other four-year colleges. Burton says the resulting structure at UMC more closely matches the one in place in departments at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities campus.
The five departments making up UMC’s new academic structure include the Agriculture Department; the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Department; the Business Department; the Math, Science and Technology Department; and the Natural Resources Department. David DeMuth, Jr., Ph.D. and associate professor of physics and math, was recently selected to serve as department head for the Math, Science and Technology Department, and Ronald Del Vecchio, Ph.D. and professor of animal science, has been named department head for the Agriculture Department. The names of the other newly-appointed department heads will be announced subsequently.
UMC’s Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Department will include the following degree programs: applied studies, communication, and early childhood education. Also included in the department are minors in technical communication, coaching, and music and the disciplines of social science, behavioral science, history, and the humanities.
UMC plans to develop a bachelor’s degree program in criminal justice, which will be administered through the department, as will UMC’s newly approved bachelor’s degree in communication. Searches for two new tenure track faculty positions, one in criminal justice and one in communication, are currently underway. These efforts are consistent with the institution’s goals of expanding the base of academic degree programs and adding new tenure-track faculty to UMC.
Posted 05/13/2004