Western Carolina University

Topics and Speakers

Roseanna Sneed Belt
"The History and Development of Indian Education"
"Indian Education and Today's Native Youth"
Presentation stresses the importance of Native American's attaining higher education and how the youth must be prepared for college and convinced that they are ready and can do it.

Roseanna Sneed Belt is director of WCU's Cherokee Center, was born in Cherokee, North Carolina in 1951. She has worked in education since 1975 at different levels. Most recently, she was a school counselor for 13 years at Cherokee Elementary School. Prior to that sheworked at Western Carolina University with the Educational Talent Search Program as a counselor working with high school students in Western North Carolina.

Belt also worked for 10 years as a University Counselor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, advising and assisting Native American students and other minority students. She attended the University of Colorado in Boulder for her undergraduate degree and Harvard University, Graduate School of Education, for a Masters Degree in Counseling and Consulting Psychology.

She is a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, and an active participant in community affairs, particularly as it relates to preservation of language and culture.

Dale Brotherton
"Coping with Change in Family Relationships"
"Theories of Family Counseling"

Dr. Dale Brotherton, assistant professor of human services, has a doctorate in marriage and family counseling from Florida State University. He writes for professional journals and speaks at national and state conventions. He also conducts local parenting workshops.

Jeanne Dulworth
"Working with Parents as a Professional Social Worker"
"New Parenting Techniques"

Ms. Jeanne Dulworth instructs classes at WCU specializing in human development and social interactions. She has taught parenting classes for five years, including Active Parenting Today, PAT, Talking & Listening, and many more. She recently developed a class specifically for parents whose children have been removed from their custody. Her practice experience is with mental health and children and family issues.

Jill Dix Ghnassia
"Linking the Campus to the Community: Teaching HIV and AIDS in an Integrative Model"
"Mary Shelley's The Last Man and Narratives of Survivorship"
"Shelley, Godwin, and the Imagination of Social Utility"
"Learning to Serve, Serving to Learn: The Students' Perspective"
"Interdisciplinarity and The Public Sphere"

Dr. Jill Dix Ghnassia, received her B.A. from Bucknell University and her M.A. and Ph.D. from Duke University. She is currently the senior ranking female administrator at Western Carolina University and is a specialist in 19th Century British and European Literature, the Brontes, the AIDS pandemic, literature and medicine, interdisciplinary studies, service learning, and honors education. At the University of Hartford she was part of a faculty team that wrote and received a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to develop a course on the AIDS pandemic. She also worked to promote and create interdisciplinary courses and to incorporate service learning across the curriculum. She received a grant at Hartford to internationalize the English curriculum. Dr. Ghnassia is the author of several articles, textbooks, and a critical study, Metaphysical Rebellion in the Works of Emily Bronte: A Reinterpretation. In 1996 she was elected to the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has served on the Executive Board of the New England Association of English and continues to serve on the Editorial Board of its publication, The Leaflet. She has been a Yale/Mellon Visiting Faculty member, a New York University Associate, and participant in NEH seminars and institutes. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Alpha Lambda Delta, and Kappa Delta Pi.

John Habel
"Effective Teaching, Effective Learning"
"Biographical and Life History Research"

Assistant professor Dr. John C. Habel is interested in teaching and learning both in public school settings and in higher education. He received a doctorate in educational psychology from the University of Tennessee and has been at WCU since 1993.

Mary Jean Herzog
"Issues in Rural Education"
"Teachers' Experiences with School Censorship"

Associate professor Dr. Mary Jean Herzog has been with the university's Department of Administration, Curriculum, and Instruction since 1989. She teaches in the area of educational curriculum and has been involved in program evaluation. Her articles appear in Democracy and Education, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, and Phi Delta Kappan.

Bob Houghton
"BrainPower: Education and the Internet"

An overview of the requirements and opportunities that the information age provides. A Projection screen, computer (any platform) and Internet access is preferred. This presentation is relevant to schools, community groups, and business organizations. It can be tailored to cover from 20 minutes to two hours. Longer workshops are available.

"Multimedia - The Biggest Revolution in Communication Since the Alphabet"
A Projection screen, computer (any platform) and Internet access is preferred along with a large number of electrical plugs for the technology that I will bring along.

"Distance Education - The Everyone Can University"
A Projection screen, computer (any platform) and Internet access is preferred.

Casey Hurley
"K-12 Education"
"Organizational Leadership."

John Ritchie
"Crisis Intervention"
"Male-Female Communication"
"Male Development"

Dr. John Ritchie, director of counseling and psychological services at WCU, has been in the mental health field for more than twenty years. He is a licensed psychologist with a private practice. Involved with the men's movement for ten years, he leads three-day workshops specifically for men.