CoLA Faculty and Staff

Dr. Joddy Murray, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, is the chief administrative and academic officer of the College and reports to the Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs. The Dean is expected to bring a vision for the future which will inspire, encourage, build consensus, and lead the faculty, students, and staff of the College community to greater academic excellence. As the inaugural dean of a newly reorganized College, the Dean provides leadership in shaping the identity of the College, inspiring the College to develop innovative interdisciplinary academic and research activities, and serving as the face of the College in outreach to alumni and other constituencies.

Dr. Murray (Ph.D. Syracuse University, 2003; M.F.A. Texas State University, 1999; M.Ed. University of Oklahoma, 1995) is also a Professor of Rhetoric and New Media and is tenured in the SIU School of Literature, Writing, and Digital Humanities.

He teaches courses in writing, rhetoric, composition, and creative writing. His research interests include the rhetorical theory of multimodal composition and he publishes poetry. He is the author of Non-Discursive Rhetoric: Image and Affect in Multimodal Composition (2009), Kinematic Rhetoric: Non-discursive, Time-affect Images in Motion (2020), and Anaphora: Poems(2020).

Dr. Jennifer Smith, Associate Dean for Budget, Personnel and Research, assists the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts in the administration of personnel, fiscal, and budgetary matters. In addition, she facilitates and oversees research, scholarship, and creative work, and represents the College within the University and extramurally.

Dr. Smith’s main area of research is late-nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Iberian literature and culture, with a special focus on medical discourses on gender and sexuality and their dialog with literary works. Her research also explores questions of race and class. She has published four books: Women, Mysticism, and Hysteria in Fin-de-siècle Spain (Vanderbilt UP, 2021, author), Modern Spanish Women as Agents of Change (Bucknell UP, 2018, editor), Intersections of Race, Class, Gender, and Nation in Fin-de-Siècle Spain (Routledge, 2017, co-editor with Lisa Nalbone), and Emilia Pardo Bazán’s Insolación (Cervantes & Co., 2011, editor). She has also authored over twenty articles and book chapters, the majority focused on the Spanish feminist writer Emilia Pardo Bazán.

In the School of Languages and Linguistics, Dr. Smith teaches courses on Spanish language, and Iberian, Latin American, and Latinx literature, cinema, and culture. She also directs the summer study abroad program in Alcalá de Henares, Spain.

Dr. Smith's Curriculum Vitae (pdf)

Dr. Benjamin Bricker, Associate Dean for Student and Curricular Affairs, is primarily responsible for the development and coordination of student and curricular matters in the College of Liberal Arts, including program development, program modification, program review, articulation, and course scheduling changes. Professor Bricker’s position also helps to coordinate scholarships and student success initiatives, as well as to oversee grade changes, academic reinstatement, academic misconduct, and academic grievances.

Dr. Bricker (Ph.D., Washington University in St. Louis, 2013; J.D., University of Illinois, 2008) is also an Associate Professor of Political Science and holds a cross appointment in the SIU School of Law.

He teaches courses in constitutional law, civil rights & liberties, law & society, and international law, as well as comparative courses in democratization, European politics, and constitutionalism. His research interests include judicial decision making, political polarization, and the operation of judicial review in democratic societies.

He is the author of Visions of Judicial Review: A Comparative Study of Courts and Policy in Democracies (ECPR Press, 2016). Other work has appeared in the German Law Journal, the Justice System Journal, and Law & Policy, among others.

Dr. Bricker's Curriculum Vitae (pdf)