Candidates - College of Liberal Arts

Liberal Arts

(two seats, three-year term) (one seat, unexpired one-year term)

Elizabeth Bishop (History)

If you want to know what I offer COLA on the 66th Faculty Senate, see what I accomplished on the 58th Faculty Senate and 59th Faculty Senates. My record is documented in “Faculty Senate Talks Diversity Issues, Prepares for Next Year” University Star (19 April 2018), “Faculty Senate Talks DACA, CDO and Dean Search” University Star (1 March 2018), and “Faculty Senate Addresses Salaries, Security Concerns” University Star (25 January 2018). During both, I served on the Curriculum Committee which evaluates new degree program and course proposals. A Doctor of Philosophy major in Applied Anthropology was added to the course catalog (meeting of 24 February 2017), and the Department of Philosophy added 30 new graduate courses (27 January 2017). During these two terms, I helped form a new Academic Freedom Committee and introduced a Faculty Senate Bulletin for transparency (both of which I subsequently turned over to others).

Peter B. Dedek (History)

Dr. Peter Dedek, a professor and acting graduate advisor for the Department of History, and coordinator and advisor of the Public History program, has served in various leadership positions and numerous committees. He served on the Faculty Senate as interim senator (2020) and served over three years as Faculty Senate liaison.

Since 2021 Dedek has been a faculty senator (Liberal Arts) and hopes to continue in that capacity for another term. As senator, Dedek worked on a committee that conducted a comprehensive faculty salary study to analyze salary inequity/compression and the effects of inflation that helped the administration in its salary decisions, campaigned to save University Camp, advocated for the protection of tenure, supported the new career path for teaching faculty, and worked to maintain and enhance shared governance to include a robust faculty role. Faculty Senate should be a strong voice for the faculty, and he has worked to have the voices of TXST faculty heard.

Paul DeHart (Polticial Science)

Paul R. DeHart is professor of Political Science at Texas State University, where he has taught for the last 15 years. He holds a PhD (2005) and MA in Government from the University of Texas at Austin. He is author of The Social Contract in the Ruins (forthcoming 2024), Uncovering the Constitution’s Moral Design (2007; 2017), and coeditor of Reason, Revelation, and the Civic Order (2014) as well as numerous articles and book chapters. DeHart has delivered lectures in the Constitutional Thought and History Seminar of the University of Oxford’s prestigious Rothermere American Institute, at the University of Dayton’s School of Law, and to audiences that have included federal (district and appellate) and state judges. He has served as a grant proposal reviewer the NEH’s year-long fellowship and in 2024 will serve at the highest level of review—the committee the makes recommendations directly to the Presidentially appointed National Council on the Humanities.

Valentina Glajar (World Languages and Literatures)

Valentina Glajar received her Ph.D. in German Studies from the University of Texas at Austin and taught at Ohio State University and Texas Tech University before coming to Texas State. Since 2011, she has been an external researcher for the Romanian National Council for the Study of the Secret Police Archives. Her research on surveillance and life writing was rewarded with TXST’s first ACLS Fellowship, which allowed her to complete her most recent book on the dossier of Nobel laureate Herta Müller (2023).

She directs the German Program in World Languages and Literatures and has served on or chaired various committees. The German Program is known for an inclusive model of deliberation and decision-making that involves all faculty, regardless of rank. She also served as TXST’s Fulbright Campus Adviser from 2005 to 2020, leading our campus to its first (and then second) recognition as a Fulbright Top Producing Institution.

Chad Hammett (English)

Chad Hammett has taught in the Texas State English Department since 2002 and currently serves as the assistant director of Lower Division Studies in English and chair of the Sophomore Literature Committee. He has been on the advisory and curriculum board for the University Seminar program since 2012. From 2012 until 2023, he also sat on the Common Experience and Common Reading committees. His most significant publication is the book Two Prospectors: The Letters of Sam Shepard and Johnny Dark.

Steve Wilson (English)

I served two terms as Senator (2007-13), helping create the Nontenure Line Faculty Workload Release, serving on the President’s Strategic Task Force on Internationalization, and leading efforts to stop the administration initiating random faculty drug testing. I also served as Associate Chair of English (2008-20). After my three Fulbright awards, the Associate VP for AA named me Campus Representative for Fulbright; for a decade, I supervised publicity and reviewed all TXST faculty Fulbright proposals. I secured an NEA grant funding creative writing events on campus and at local sites -- Southside Community Center, city library, and the women’s shelter. I received support from the US State Department for a two-week campus visit by 15 Slovene students (the first such grant ever awarded a university). I’ve directed the TXST in Ireland program for 20 years. I’ve published six poetry collections. I hope to continue shaping and sustaining a thriving university.

To cast your vote go to Faculty Senate Elections, between 1 -8 April, 2024.