Announcing New Faculty Administrators

Congratulations to Dennis Winston, Sharada Balachandran Orihuela, and Jason Rudy

Congratulations to our new Faculty Administrators:

Senior Lecturer Dennis Winston was appointed to the position of PTK Faculty Mentoring Coordinator. Dr. Winston earned his MA in English from North Carolina A&T and PhD in English and African American Literature from Texas A & M University. He joined the English Department in Fall 2018, before which he had been teaching at Howard University. Dr. Winston is a published poet and pursues an active research agenda, with specialties in hip-hop literacies and African American literature. Dr. Winston also works with independent hip-hop artists and producers in the Washington D.C. area for his live performance series called “Hip Hop is Lit!” and is the current Editor-in-Chief of Words Beats & Life: The Global Journal of Hip-Hop Culture. He has taught courses in creative writing, popular black literature, and hip-hop studies. At Howard, Dr. Winston contributed in substantive ways to redesigning the first-year writing program, with a particular focus on inclusion, diversity, access, and equity.  Here at UMD, Dr. Winston has served on the CAARES Committee and as a PWP Teaching Group Leader.

Associate Professor Sharada Balachandran Orihuela has stepped into the role of Director of Comparative Literature.

Professor Jason Rudy as stepped into the role of Director of Graduate Studies.  

Special thanks to Associate Professor Oliver Gaycken and Professor GerShun Avilez for their creative vision, steady leadership, and generous commitment of time and energy during these particularly difficult years.