Five Faculty Promoted to Full Professor

The promotions were approved at the most recent meeting of the College’s Board of Trustees.

Faculty

By Ryan E. Smith

Date November 4, 2026

Kenyon’s Board of Trustees considered the recommendations of the Tenure and Promotion Committee at its October meeting, where it approved promoting the following five members of the faculty to full professor effective July 1, 2027.

The College, which was named No. 14 in the country for “Best Undergraduate Teaching” in U.S. News & World Report’s 2027 rankings, aspires to employ the best teacher-scholars available.

To that end, the title of full professor represents the highest rank the College confers. It rests upon demonstrated excellence in teaching, scholarly or artistic engagement, and citizenship sustained over a substantial period of time and the achievement of recognition both within the College and the profession as a whole.

Craig Hill

Associate Professor of Studio Art

Craig Hill, who first joined Kenyon in 2005 as a visiting assistant professor, teaches drawing, painting, printmaking and cartooning. His work appropriates imagery and techniques from pop culture and modernist works of art. Using well-known childhood imagery such as superheroes, toys, and ray guns, he creates paintings that explore masculinity and male rites of passage.

In his studio and classroom, art-making is examined as both language and craft. The visual language addresses cultural signifiers, symbols and metaphors in the content and structure of the image. Hill’s students are taught not only to make images but also to read them to develop their visual literacy. They are taught to examine the social, cultural and historical contexts within their work. It is his goal to foster an understanding of the world through the study of art in order to engage with the world in a meaningful way.

Master of Fine Arts in painting and printmaking from the Rhode Island School of Design (2001)
Collegiate teaching certificate from Brown University (2001)
Bachelor of Fine Arts in drawing from the Atlanta College of Art (1997)

Nurten Kilic-Schubel

Associate Professor of History

Nurten Kilic-Schubel is a cultural historian of Islamic Central Eurasia who joined the College as a visiting assistant professor in 2000. Her research focuses on political culture, literary life and women’s history in early modern Central Eurasia. She has authored several articles and the forthcoming book, “Unclaimed Histories: Women’s History and Literary Culture in 19th-Century Central Asia.” She has spent significant amounts of time in Central Asia, including as a Fulbright scholar in Kyrgyzstan in 2010. She teaches a wide range of courses related to Central Asia and the Middle East in premodern and modern periods.

Doctor of Philosophy in history from the University of Ankara, Turkey (1999)
Master of Arts in history from the University of Uludag, Turkey (1994)
Bachelor of Arts in history from Middle East Technical University, Turkey (1991)

Tabitha W. Payne

Associate Professor of Psychology

Tabitha Payne joined the faculty at Kenyon in 2002. Her teaching interests include courses in psycholinguistics, such as “Psychology of Language” and “Language Disorders.” In her research, she seeks to understand individual differences in the ability to apply effortful focus toward remembering, problem solving and learning, as well as understanding factors that contribute to awareness and acceptance for those with language-related conditions. Her work expands into the surrounding Knox and Richland county communities in connecting art, communication and learning.

Doctor of Philosophy in experimental psychology-cognitive psychology from the Georgia Institute of Technology (2003)
Master of Science in research psychology in cognition and sensory memory from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (1997)
Bachelor of Arts in experimental psychology from The Ohio State University (1995)

Kerry Rouhier

Associate Professor of Chemistry

Kerry Rouhier, a winner of Kenyon’s Trustee Teaching Excellence Award as well as this year’s Faculty Advising Award, joined the College faculty in 2010. Her research focuses on the enzymes and metabolic pathways plants use to make specialized metabolites, such as those that protect the plant from infection or pests. Specifically, she is interested in metabolites that are derived from branched-chain amino acids, which commonly serve as alternative energy sources during early stages of germination, extended periods of darkness, and senescence. She is currently investigating metabolic pathways found in the plant model system Arabidopsis thaliana and in tomatoes and tomato-related plants. She teaches biochemistry courses and contributes to the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Program.

Doctor of Philosophy in chemistry from Miami University (2008)
Bachelor of Science in chemistry from Aquinas College in Michigan (2003)

Marie A. Snipes

Associate Professor of Mathematics

Marie A. Snipes joined the Kenyon faculty in 2009. Her research lies in geometric measure theory and nonlinear analysis in metric spaces. She studies how geometric structure, distance and energy minimization interact, particularly in settings where classical Euclidean tools no longer apply. These questions connect abstract analysis with models arising in both physical and data-driven systems.

Before beginning her doctoral studies, Snipes served four years in the United States Air Force, where she conducted statistical analyses and developed mathematical models of personnel data. This experience continues to inform her teaching and research, particularly in connecting theoretical ideas with modeling and data.

Snipes enjoys working with undergraduate student researchers through Kenyon’s Summer Science Scholars Program. She teaches courses across the analytic, applied mathematics and statistics curricula and is a coauthor of an application-inspired linear algebra textbook that integrates computation and modeling into core mathematical structures.