Faculty Profile

Students and alumni agree that OWU’s faculty is top-notch.

Ohio Wesleyan is a place where you spend time with your professors not only in the classroom and the lab, but also informally. Going for coffee. Participating in a weekly student-faculty lunch. Meeting up at a football game. Or just kicking back for a stimulating conversation at Ham-Wil. It’s all part of the Ohio Wesleyan experience.

OWU faculty members are dedicated to your success and give you every opportunity to shine. Many student-faculty pairs have worked together on research projects, published together in professional journals, or presented together at prestigious national conferences. Your professors will be more than teachers. They’ll become important mentors and close friends. They are eager to introduce you to colleagues and to help you find your way into important professional, academic, and business networks.

At Ohio Wesleyan all classes are taught by professors, never by teaching assistants. And nearly every faculty member holds a Ph.D. or equivalent terminal degree. That’s part of the OWU advantage. (Faculty information is available in the online Catalog.)

In addition to teaching, our faculty members continue their own scholarly work because they know that to be a great teacher, you must also be an eager learner. Here’s just a sampling of some recent faculty accomplishments:

• Jed Burtt, Zoology, president-elect of the American Ornithologists’ Union
• Xiaoming Chen, History, author of From the May Fourth Movement to Communist Revolution: Guo Morou and the Chinese Path to Communism
• Department of Education accredited by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education
• Lee Fratantuono, Humanities-Classics, author of Madness Unchained: A Reading of Virgil’s Aeneid
• Michael Flamm, History, author of Debating the 1960s; Liberal Conservative, and Radical Perspectives
• Bonnie Milne Gardner, Theatre & Dance, author of One Last Mass
• Sean Kay, Politics and Government, author of Global Security in the Twenty-First Century
• Akbar Mahdi, Sociology/Anthropology, author of Culture and Customs of Iran
• Jay Martin, Physical Education, National Soccer Coaches Association of America Honor Award
• Robert Olmstead, English, author of Coal Black Horse, the 2007 Heartland Prize-winner for fiction.

Each year, many faculty members receive research grants and fellowships, from such organizations as the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the Fulbright Program. That’s a testament to their professionalism and reputation—all of which is available to you every day at Ohio Wesleyan.