Drs. Molly McGraw and Marc Settembrino have been awarded endowed professorships by the university for acedmic excellence. This is the first time that two of the department’s professors have held endowed professorships at the same time.
Dr. McGraw received the Distinguished Teaching Endowed Professorship in the Humanities during the Fall 2022 semester. The professorship provides three years of funding. Dr. McGraw is a physical geographer who joined the department in 2005, two weeks before Hurricane Katrina. She has taught a number of different geography classes, including Louisiana Geography, Geography of Natural Hazards, Introduction to Geography, and Physical Geography. She is also an active researcher with interests ranging from Alaskan Arctic rivers to coastal New Zealand, with Louisiana wetlands in between. She is currently working on a project involving media coverage of recent major hurricanes and updating a Louisiana Geography textbook.
Dr. Marc Settembrino (he/they) was awarded the Woman’s Hospital Endowed Professor in the Humanities in the Fall of 2020. In this role, Dr. Settembrino has expanded on their successful integration of yoga/embodied learning practices in my undergraduate courses and developed a new undergraduate course that examines yoga philosophy and practices and how they can support social justice movements. Additionally, Dr. Settembrino has hosted several virtual conversations with yoga practitioners who have shared how their yoga practice informs their social justice activism. Speaking about their yoga practice, Dr. Settembrino says, “White Supremacy, Cis-Hetero-Patriarchy, Ableism, Anti-Fatness, and Capitalism actively repress our humanity. As a result, many of us accept that we are unworthy of dignity. Worse yet, we allow other people to suffer because we don’t recognize them as humans either. At its core, yoga is a practice for reconnecting with our humanity and learning to recognize that humanity in others.” To learn more, contact Dr. Settembrino via email at [email protected].
