January 2013 Scholar-in-Residence - Dr. Timothy Melley

The Ph.D. program in Interdisciplinary Studies is proud to announce Dr. Timothy Melley as our January 2013 Scholar-in-Residence. Dr. Melley, English professor and director of the Humanities Center at Miami University, will present his keynote lecture at Conference Day.

An award-winning teacher and cultural critic focusing on U.S. literature and history from the Cold War to the present, Melley has published essays and short stories in numerous literary journals and magazines. He authored Empire of Conspiracy: The Culture of Paranoia in Postwar America (Cornell 2000) and The Covert Sphere: Secrecy, Fiction, and the National Security State (Cornell 2012). His work has been covered by the L.A. Times, Village Voice, Le Figaro, The Wall Street Journal, Canadian Public Television, and NPR. His fiction work has been featured on PRI’s “This American Life.”

MLK Guest Speaker - Dr. Michael Quinn Patton

Dr. Michael Quinn Patton is an accomplished independent organizational development and evaluation consultant with 40 years of experience. He uses a variety of evaluation and research methods to improve human effectiveness and applies this utilization-focused evaluation to a broad range of initiatives. He has worked with organizations and programs at the international, national, state, and local levels, and with philanthropic, not-for-profit, private sector, international agency, and government programs.

Currently, Dr. Patton is an organizational development trainer for the World Bank in Ottawa, the American Evaluation Association's professional development courses, and The Evaluators’ Institute. Previously, he served as president of the American Evaluation Association. From 1991 to 2007 he was a faculty member of Union Institute & University. He also served as faculty of the University of Minnesota for 18 years (1973-1991), including five years as director of the Minnesota Center for Social Research and ten years with the Minnesota Extension Service.

He has authored six books, served as a valued keynote speaker around the world, and has earned numerous honors for his achievements in the field of organizational development.

Dr. Patton holds a Ph.D. in Organizational Sociology from the University of Wisconsin.

Guest Workshop Leader - Peter Block

Peter Block is an author, consultant and citizen of Cincinnati, Ohio. His work is about empowerment, stewardship, chosen accountability, and the reconciliation of community.

Peter is the author of several best–selling books, including Flawless Consulting: A Guide to Getting Your Expertise Used (1st edition 1980, 3rd edition 2011); Community: The Structure of Belonging (2008); and The Abundant Community: Awakening the Power of Families and Neighborhoods, co–authored with John McKnight (2010).

Peter’s books are about ways to create workplaces and communities that work for all. They offer an alternative to the patriarchal beliefs that dominate our culture. His work is to bring change into the world through consent and connectedness rather than through mandate and force.
Peter Block's website.

Guest Presenter - Danielle Cadena Deulen

Danielle Cadena Deulen, Ph.D. is a poet and essayist. Her collection of poems, Lovely Asunder (University of Arkansas Press, 2011) won the Miller Williams Arkansas Poetry Prize and the Utah Book Award. Her memoir, The Riots (University of Georgia Press, 2011), earned the AWP Prize in Creative Nonfiction, the GLCA New Writers Award, and was a finalist for the Grub Street National Book Prize in Nonfiction. In addition, she has served as a Jay C. and Ruth Halls Poetry Fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Dr. Deulen’s work has been published in The Utne Reader, The Missouri Review, The Iowa Review, Smartish Pace, and The Indiana Review. She received her M.F.A. in Creative Writing from George Mason University and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Utah. Currently, she teaches in the graduate creative writing program at the University of Cincinnati.

Faculty Presenter - Dr. Diane Allerdyce

Diane Allerdyce, Ph.D., is the co–founder of Toussaint L'Ouverture High School for Arts & Social Justice in Delray Beach, Florida, where she serves as Chief Academic Officer. She is also a core faculty member in the Humanities and Culture track of the Cohort Ph.D. program in Interdisciplinary Studies at Union Institute & University.
Dr. Allerdyce was trained as a poetry therapy facilitator and is a past-president of the National Association for Poetry Therapy (NAPT). She received the NAPT Distinguished Service Award in 2007 and the NAPT Outstanding Achievement Award in 2009. She has extensive experience as a National Trainer for the Classroom of Difference Program of the Anti–Defamation League (ADL) and is a member of the ReThinkHaiti Task Force on Educational Reform. Her book House of Aching Beauty: Selected Poems and Prose on Haiti, Heartbreak and Healing 2007–2012 was published in July 2012 by Editions Perle Des Antilles.

Past Scholars in Residence and Guest Presenters

Click here for the July 2012 Conference Day program
Click here for the January 2012 Conference Day program 

• Myriam J.A. Chancy, Writer and Professor, University of Cincinnati
• O’dell Owens, President, Cincinnati State Technical and Community College
• Curtis Chin, Asian Pacific Americans for Progress
• George Shulman, Professor, Gallatin School of New York University
• David Altman, Executive Vice President, Research, Innovation, and Product Development at the Center for Creative Leadership (July 2011).
• Denise James, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Dayton (July 2011).
• Patricia Hill Collins, Distinguished University Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland (January 2011).
• Sheila Kennedy, Professor of Law and Policy in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at the Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis (July 2010).
• Martin Espada, Poet and Professor, University of Massachusetts Amherst (July 2009).