Faculty Promotions Announced at Holy Cross

WORCESTER, Mass. – Seven faculty members at the College of the Holy Cross have been promoted to the rank of full professor. These promotions will be in effect for the 2010-2011 academic year.

Lawrence E. Cahoone, of the philosophy department, earned a B.A. from Clark University and his Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.  He joined the Holy Cross faculty in 2000 and received tenure in 2003. At the College he served as chair of the College Curriculum Committee and chair of the Ad-Hoc committee to rewrite the Curriculum Committee Statute.  He is the author or editor of numerous publications, including From Modernism to Postmodernism: An Anthology (Blackwell, 2003) and his most recent book, Cultural Revolutions: Reason versus Culture in Philosophy, Politics, and Jihad (Penn State, 2005). His research concentrates on social and postmodern philosophy and metaphysics and natural science. He lives in Wrentham, Mass.

James M. Kee, of the English department, received his B.A. from the University of Notre Dame and his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. A member of the Holy Cross faculty since 1981, he has served the College in numerous roles, including, most recently, as Chair of the Search Committee for the Director of Library Services, a member of the Finance and Planning Council, and an advisor in the Mentor Program. He has served as interim vice president for academic affairs, dean, and the chair of the English department.  In 2007, he was the recipient of Holy Cross’ Distinguished Teaching Award. He resides in Paxton, Mass.

Lee Oser, of the English department, earned his B.A. from Reed College and his Ph.D. from Yale University.  An Edward Bennett Williams Fellow, Oser joined the Holy Cross faculty in 1998 and he received tenure in 2002.  He has served the college through numerous outlets including president of Phi Beta Kappa, chair of the Leonard J. McCarthy S.J. Memorial Prize, and co-chair of the Faculty Compensation Committee.  He has received numerous research grants including the Batchelor (Ford) Foundation grant, and this fall he was a recipient of a Holy Cross faculty fellowship.  His four books include The Ethics of Modernism: Moral Ideas in Yeats, Eliot, Joyce, Woolf, and Beckett (Cambridge University Press), The Return of Christian Humanism: Chesterton, Eliot, Tolkien, and the Romance of History (University of Missouri Press), and Out of What Chaos: A Novel (Scarith), all published in 2007. His poetry has appeared in leading magazines and journals, including National Review, Southwest Review, Commonweal, and Literary Imagination. He is secretary of the Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers. His research concentrates on religion and literature.

Robert ParkeHarrison, of the visual arts department, received his B.F.A. at the Kansas City Art Institute and his M.F.A. at the University of New Mexico.  A member of the Holy Cross faculty since 1995, he received tenure in 2001.  ParkeHarrison has served as the faculty advisor of the Gesso student art organization and severed as studio head. He has also coordinated the visiting artists’ lectures, the Studio Reviews and departmental trips to New York City Museums and Mass Moca. In 1999, ParkeHarrison was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship, and in 2007 he was nominated and awarded the Nancy Graves Foundation Fellowship. Over the years has been a recipient of numerous Holy Cross research and publication grants.  His photography can be found in several museum collections around the country including the Whitney Museum, L.A. County Museum; and locally at the Worcester Art Museum, DeCordovia Museum, Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and The Fogg Art Museum. His images have been published in journals including The New Yorker, Artforum, Art in America, and Harpers Magazine. His work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions including Counterpoint at the Jack Shainman Gallery in New York City, The Architect’s Brother at the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego, Calif. and at the George Eastman House in Rochester, N.Y. ParkeHarrison continues to teach students the creative possibilities of utilizing photography as a medium to communicate ideas and explore issues.

Kenneth Neal Prestwich, of the biology department, earned his B.A. from Davidson College and his Ph.D. from the University of Florida.  He joined the Holy Cross faculty in 1984 and earned tenure in 1990.  In 2009, he was the recipient of Holy Cross’s Arthur J. O’Leary Faculty Recognition Award and received the Distinguished Service Award from the American Arachnological Society.  He has been the recipient of numerous grants including the Howard Hughes Medical Foundation and the Hewlett-Mellon Grant.  His research concentrates on measuring the acoustic scope of species’ mating calls.  Prestwich resides in North Brookfield, Mass., for the academic year and lives in Gainesville, Fla. for the summer and the months of December and January.

Richard Schmidt, of the psychology department, received his B.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Connecticut. He joined the Holy Cross faculty in 1995 and received tenure in 1999.  He currently serves the College as a biopsychology concentration faculty member, and is a member of the psychology department’s Computer Committee, and the College Curriculum Committee.  He has received numerous grants for research, including in 2008 as the principal investigator for the Perceptual Pick-up Processes in Interpersonal Coordination from the National Science Foundation, and the most recent in 2009, as the co-investigator of the Social Coordination in Agents with Deficits from the Agence Nationale de La Recherche, France.  He currently holds a research position with the Center for the Ecological Study of Perception & Action at the University of Connecticut. His research concentrates on interpersonal movement coordination and its ramifications for social interactions. He resides in Holden, Mass.

Rev. Thomas Worcester, S.J., of the history department, earned his B.A. from Columbia University and his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge.  He joined the Holy Cross faculty in 1994 and received tenure in 2000.  He is the author of Seventeenth-Century Cultural Discourse: France and the Preaching of Bishop Camus (Mouton de Gruyter, 1997); he is the editor of The Cambridge Companion to the Jesuits (Cambridge University Press, 2008), and the author of numerous articles in publications including Seventeenth-Century French Studies, Sixteenth Century Journal, and French Colonial History.  Fr. Worcester was co-curator of two major art exhibitions supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, one at Boston College and one at the Worcester Art Museum. He has been the recipient of several faculty fellowships from Holy Cross, and was recognized with the College's Marfuggi Award for Outstanding Scholarship in 2006. He served as the Wade Chair at Marquette University for 2008-09.  He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa (Columbia University chapter) and numerous professional organizations including the American Catholic Historical Association and the Renaissance Society of America.  His research interests include religious culture in France and Italy, Jesuit history, and the history of the papacy.