Our Faculty

Because of its unique history, from its earliest beginnings in the late 1970s the Graduate Humanities Program developed an unusual collaborative of diversely trained faculty hailing from the West Virginia College of Graduate Studies (which became the Marshall University Graduate College in South Charleston in 1997), West Virginia State University, the University of Charleston, and several other colleges and universities based in south central West Virginia.  That range of institutional experience and disciplinary expertise had a critical bearing on the multidisciplinary culture of the Program. The Director and other faculty have been traditionally jointly appointed in more than one Marshall University department or college, for example.

Today the Program’s affiliated faculty, scholars and practitioners hail from a variety of institutions in addition to Marshall.  A mixture of live seminar meetings, virtual and online instruction make it possible to engage faculty across disciplines and across institutions.

Director

Luke Eric Lassiter
Luke Eric Lassiter, PhD
Professor of Humanities and Anthropology
Graduate Humanities Program
Marshall University

Affiliated Faculty, Scholars, and Practitioners

Chris Green, PhD
Associate Professor of Appalachian Studies
Director of the Loyal Jones Appalachian Center
Berea College
Trish Hatfield, MFA

Assistant Program Director
Editor, Graduate Humanities
Graduate Instructor
Graduate Humanities Program
Marshall University

Emily Hilliard, MA
Program Officer for Folk and Traditional Arts
Central Appalachia Living Traditions Program
Mid Atlantic Arts
Lori Howard, PhD
Professor of Education
Department of Special Education
Marshall University
Billy Joe Peyton, PhD
Retired Professor of History
Department of History & Political Science
West Virginia State University
Cathy Pleska, MFA
Instructor of English
Department of English
Marshall University