Please welcome our newest Interdisciplinary Studies team members, who are joining our program on July 1, 2018!
Dr. Matthew Cheney will be the Interim Director while Robin is on sabbatical in the Fall, and then will stay on as a faculty member in our program when Robin returns in January. Matt has a Ph.D. in English from the University of New Hampshire and an interdisciplinary Master’s Degree from Dartmouth. He has previously taught Communications & Media Studies, English, and Women’s Studies for Plymouth State. He has been published by The Los Angeles Review of Books, One Story, Conjunctions, English Journal, Woolf Studies Annual, Best Gay Stories, Weird Tales, and elsewhere, and his collection Blood: Stories won the Hudson Prize and was published by Black Lawrence Press in 2016. And he played the title character in the movie Zombie Boy! Matt is looking forward to meeting our new majors, and teaching the two #IDSintro sections this Fall. “I’m excited to be part of the Interdisciplinary Studies team,” Matt reports, “not only because much of my own work and life have been interdisciplinary, but also because so much of what is exciting in education today is happening in interdisciplinary programs. Learning ought to be creative, challenging, invigorating, and empowering. I know it is exactly that in Interdisciplinary Studies at Plymouth State, and I am thrilled to be able to join in the process.” We are so very lucky to have him!
Also joining us in July is Hannah Hounsell, who will be our new Program Support Administrator, as Janina heads off to graduate school at Dartmouth. Hannah graduated from PSU in 2017 with a Bachelor of Arts in English and teacher certification for grades 5-12. Hannah worked as the USNH Open Education Administrative Assistant for a half year to help further the Open Education initiative across USNH and coordinate the 2018 Academic Technology Institute. She is currently the Coordinator of the National Writing Project in New Hampshire’s Young Writers Institute, which provides opportunities for high schoolers to explore the craft of writing. Hannah says, “I’ve been watching IDS at PSU grow for the last couple years– first as a student and then as the Open Education Administrative Assistant for USNH. I’m incredibly excited to be an 
active part of the growth. Recently, I have become interested in the ways that higher education needs to change to fit a twenty-first century society, and I see IDS as a model for such change. I’m looking forward to supporting and empowering highly-motivated IDS students as they build their higher education experiences.” Hannah will be a great advisor, and is ready to assist you with your technology, writing, and program planning challenges!
Please join Bonnie (Bonnie Toomey, #IDSsem instructor) and Robin (Robin DeRosa, IDS Director) in welcoming Matt and Hannah to our family! Please stop in to Lamson to meet them later in the summer or this Fall. Janina Misiewicz’s last day in the office is June 29th: please send her a good-bye email or tweet (@jlmisiewicz) to let her know how much we will miss her!
