Languages and Literature Faculty and Staff

Bio

Dr. Andersen has been a full-time faculty member at Eastern New Mexico University (ENMU) since the Fall of 2002. She brings to the department expertise in technical communication and rhetoric, and teaches report writing, technical writing for allied health students, and English composition. Her other teaching experience includes a summer technical writing workshop for participants in the Summer Science Asteroid Research Program (SSP), a science program for international rising high school juniors and seniors that is housed on the campus of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. Dr. Andersen has extensive experience in online course development and delivery. Dr. Andersen is listed in ENMU's Speakers/Experts Guide for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Research Interests

Dr. Andersen's dissertation, "Co-responsibility in the Undergraduate Technical Communication Service Course: An Ethical Imperative," focuses on ethics in the web-based classroom, and investigates the possibility that the delivery of information in online undergraduate technical communication service courses may be an ethical responsibility that is shared between instructors and students. She is currently preparing an article on the topic of web-based learning for submission to the journal Technical Communication.

Her contributions to the community include a grant for the Texas Boys Ranch, and a style guide for "International Amateur-Professional Photoelectric Photometry." She recently served as a referee for the journal Technical Communication.

Bio

Dr. Mary Fanelli Ayala is a Professor of Latin American Literature and has served as Dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences at ENMU since 2006. Prior to that, she served as CLAS Assistant Dean and Department Chair, for Languages and Literature. She initiated and oversaw the university?s first faculty-led study abroad program in M?rida, Yucat?n, MX. Her PhD and MA degrees in Latin American Literature and Culture/Spanish Language are from Temple University (Philadelphia, PA) and her bachelor?s degree from LaSalle University is in Spanish as well as Business Administration. Mary was a Fulbright Fellow to M?xico, where she was welcomed as a visiting researcher at the Colegio de M?xico. As a faculty member, Dr. Ayala was recognized by Carnegie Foundation as the CASE Professor of the Year for the state of New Mexico, and she was selected at the national level by the Center for Digital Education?s yearbook as one of the ?Top 40 Innovators in Education.? Dr. Ayala is active as a peer reviewer for the Higher Learning Commission (HLC), and she currently serves on the board of directors for CONAHEC, SCOLAS (Southwest Council on Latin American Studies) and the New Mexico Alliance for Minority Participation (NM-AMP). She has participated in a number of broad higher education initiatives, including: AAHE?s BEAMS (Building Engagement and Attainment for Minority Students); the Greater Expectations Inclusive Excellence initiative; the OAS Project for Quality in Education and OAS Inter-American Summit on New Technologies for Artistic and Cultural Education; the Knewton Digital Learning Advisory Board; and the CONAHEC/AHEA ?InspirED? virtual collaboration initiative. She served as a core team member for ENMU?s PEW Leadership Award for the Renewal of Undergraduate Education and the HLC accreditation team. In her community, she serves on planning committees for Women United Community Allies, Leadership Portales, the Chamber of Commerce Ambassadors, and the Student Research and Creativity Conference; she is a member of the executive committee on the board of directors for ARISE Sexual Assault Services, and she serves on the Foundation board for Roosevelt General Hospital.

Bio

Micah Donohue received his PhD in comparative literature from Pennsylvania State University in 2015. His work analyzes the multilingual and pluricultural intersections between US-Mexican borderlands literature, Latinx literature, utopian studies, and science (speculative) fiction. He has published (or has articles appearing) in journals such as Science Fiction Studies, ASAP/Journal, Comparative American Studies, The Comparatist, and Hispanofila. His current book project maps the utopian, dystopian, and heterotopian dimensions of borderlands science fiction through readings of contemporary US-Mexican literature and film.

Bio

Dr. Henna Messina received her PhD from the University of Georgia in 2018 where she specialized in 18th and 19th century British literature. Her research interests include the history of the novel, women's writing, domestic subjectivity, and British slavery and abolition. Dr. Messina's book Precarious Domesticity in the British Novel: Space, Gender, and Empire (Lexington Books, 2024) explores the intersection of gender, class, empire, and materiality in female-authored novels from 1750-1850. Her articles have appeared in Persuasions, Women's Writing, and The Journal of Service-Learning in Higher Education.

Bio

Michael James Rizza, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at ENMU. He is the author of the award-winning novel Cartilage and Skin (2013) and a peer-reviewed monograph The Topographical Imagination of Jameson, Baudrillard, and Foucault (2015). He has published academic articles on Don DeLillo, Milan Kundera, Harold Frederic, Adrienne Rich, and Hamlin Garland. His short fiction has appeared in A Clean, Well-Lighted Place, Switchback, and Curbside Splendor. He has won various awards for his writing, including a fellowship from the New Jersey Council on the Arts and the Starcherone Prize for Innovative Fiction. He is currently at work on a novel called Heirs to the Dead Author and a book-length study of postmodern masculinity in the works of DeLillo, Auster, and others.

Bio

I am originally from southeast Texas, but have spent the last decade in the Midwest woefully away from Mexican food and kolaches. I teach Shakespeare, Medieval literature, composition, and a range of other courses. My teaching interests also include Romantic poetry, the classical tradition, drama, graphic novels, gaming (of the video and tabletop varieties), and a range of other exquisitely nerdy fandoms. I am interested in how the media we consume ? whether it be literature, film, or games ? reflects our desires and fears, and how interactive media heightens this effect. When need arises, I am capable of reciting Middle English poetry, baking solid oatmeal raisin cookies, or teaching Renaissance dance.

Currently, my research focuses on how economic thought is used in medieval literature to negotiate social bonds in a period of societal uncertainty, specifically in matters of marriage. I specifically work with Middle English poets like Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, William Langland, and the Pearl poet.