Three Berry College professors promoted

The Berry College Board of Trustees recently awarded promotions to three professors.

Associate Professor of Religion and Philosophy Jeffrey Lidke, of Rome, and Associate Professor of History Matthew Stanard, also of Rome, were promoted to Professor. Assistant Professor of Teacher Education Eliana Hirano, a Rome resident, was promoted to Associate Professor and granted tenure.

Lidke received his B.A. in religious studies from the University of Colorado and his M.A. and Ph.D. in South Asian religion and philosophy from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Lidke has been teaching at Berry since 2003 and is the chair of the Department of Religion and Philosophy. He recently published his research on the neuroscience of contemplative practice, as well as his second book, “The Goddess Beyond and Within the Three Cities: ĝƗkta Tantra and the Paradox of Power in NepƗla-Ma৆ঌala.” He is in the process of working on a monograph for Cognella Academic Publishing on the world’s religions titled “World Religions: A 21st Century Primer.”

Stanard received his B.A. magna cum laude with honors in history from Wake Forest University. In addition, he completed his M.A. and Ph.D. in modern European history at Indiana University, Bloomington. He has been a member of the Berry College faculty since 2006 and the Department of History chair since 2015. A few of his awards include the Mary S. and Samuel Poe Carden Award at Berry College in 2014 and the National History Center Decolonization Seminar in 2011. Some of his published work include, “Revisiting Bula Matari and the Congo Crisis: Successes and Anxieties in Belgium’s Late Colonial State,” in the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, “Après nous, le déluge: Belgium, Decolonization, and the Congo,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Ends of Empire, edited by Martin Thomas & Andrew Thompson of the University of Exeter (U.K.) and a review of Dina Gusejnova’s European Elites and Ideas of Empire, 19171957, on H-Empire.

Hirano received her B.S. from the Universidade de Sao Paulo, M.A. from Pontificia Universidade Catolica de Sao Paulo and a Ph. D. in applied linguistics from Georgia State University. Hirano has a passion for analyzing the challenges refugees face when pursuing academics. She recently presented “Mind the Gap: A Cross-Linguistic Study of Research Article Introductions in Brazilian Portuguese and English” at the International Association of Applied Linguistics 18th World Congress in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. One of her recent published works includes “E-pal Exchanges: A Way to Connect Preservice Teachers and English Language Learners,” in the Oregon Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages Journal with undergraduate co-authors Anne Patton and Anna Rose-Garrett.