Faculty and Staff
On-Site Faculty and Staff | Faculty Advisory Committee
The Border Studies Program Advisory Committee
The Advisory Committee visits the program and advises the program managers. The current members are:
Steve Volk, Oberlin College
Steve Volk is Professor of History at Oberlin College where he teaches Latin American history (from the pre-conquest period to the present), U.S.-Latin American relations, museum studies, and courses in visual methodologies. His research has produced publications in a number of fields including gender, violence and the border (cultural responses to femicides in Ciudad Juárez), Frida Kahlo and Mexican nationalism, and a body of work on 19th and 20th century Chilean history. At Oberlin, Volk chairs Latin American Studies and is the Director of Oberlin’s Center for Teaching Innovation and Excellence.
Glen David Kuecker, De Pauw Univeristy
Glen Kuecker is an Associate Professor of History at DePauw University. Glen specializes in Mexican history with a special focus on the port city of Tampico. His current research projects focus on how people in Latin America organize in resistance to neoliberal economic reforms. He served a three-year term as coordinator of DePauw University’s Conflict Studies program, and was the Resident Director of the Border Studies Program Fall 2006.
Elliott Young, Lewis and Clark College
Elliott Young is Professor of Latin American and Borderlands History at Lewis & Clark College. He currently serves as chair of the History Department and director of the Ethnic Studies program. He has published Catarino Garza’s Revolution on the Texas-Mexico Border), which examines the little known story of a rebellion launched from Texas against the Díaz government in Mexico in 1891, and Continental Crossroads, which presents a series of essays on borderlands history.
Howard Lamson, Earlham College
Howard Lamson is Professor of Spanish Language and Literature at Earlham College. He has extensive experience in Spain and Mexico and developed and led many off-campus study programs in Cuautla, Morelos, Mexico over the past twenty-five years. He is a founder of the Border Studies Program and served as Resident Director in 1998. His current work focuses on San Antonio Huitepec in the state of Oaxaca. Howard has been an innovator in language learning and teaching and is a founding member of Amigos, the Richmond Latino Center.
Joanna Swanger, Earlham College
Joanna Swanger is an historian and Director of Peace and Global Studies Program and Assistant Professor of Peace and Global Studies. Joanna served as the Border Studies Program Resident Director for eight years when the program was based in El Paso/Ciudad Juarez. Her research specialty is on labor history and she has produced many articles and essays about the borderlands, including serving as Editor for a special issue of the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education on The Border Studies Program: Ethnography as Pedagogy in Undergraduate Education.
Jennifer L. Johnson, Kenyon College
Jennifer L. Johnson is Associate Professor of Sociology at Kenyon College where she teaches courses on globalization, social movements and the law. She currently serves as Chair of the Sociology Department and contributes to Kenyon’s International Studies and Law & Society programs. Her research focuses on extralegal policing, indigenous justice administration and changing understandings of citizenship in Guerrero, Mexico. More recently, she initiated an ethnographic project on the civilian border patrol movement at the U.S.-Mexico border. She is committed to experiential learning for undergraduates and, in coordination with the Border Studies Program, teaches a semester-long Borders & Border Crossings course with a field component at the border.
Amy Morris, New York Union Semester
Amy Morris is the Coordinator of New York Union Semester, an experiential semester away program that is collaboration between the City University of New York (CUNY) and the New York City Central Labor Council. Previously she was the Resident Director of the Border Studies Program and transitioned the program from its previous location in El Paso/Ciudad Juarez to Tucson and Nogales. Amy holds a Masters in Public Policy from the University of Minnesota's Humphrey Institute with a concentration in Immigration and Human Rights. She has also worked for human rights in Latin America over the course of the last ten years.
Patty Lamson, Earlham College
Patty Lamson is Director of International Programs at Earlham College and Director of the Border Studies Program. She oversees off-campus study program and international student programming. She has co-led several programs to Mexico and served as Resident Director of the Border Studies Program in 1998. She is a founding member of Amigos, the Richmond Latino Center and is coordinator of the English Language Program in that organization.
