Faculty News

 

We are pleased to announce two new additions to our Department!

Brent Bjorkman joined us in July as Public Folklorist and Research Assistant Professor. Brent has a degree from WKU and has worked with the Kentucky Arts Council, Kentucky Folklife Program, and the American Folklife Center. We welcome his expertise in developing a public programming arm to our Folk Studies program. He comes to WKU after serving as Executive Director of the Vermont Folklife Center,

Amy Lundell joined the department in May 2012 after working as an archivist with History Associates Incorporated. Her main duties are at Mammoth Cave National Park Archives. She will also work with students, training them in archival methods.

 

Dr. Erika Brady

Dr. Brady won the Governor's Media Award in the Arts for her work as co-host of Barren River Breakdown on WKU Public Radio.  Listen to the interview on WKU Public Radio with Erika Brady here.

 

Dr. Michael Ann Williams

Dr. Williams was selected to make December 2011 graudation commencement speech.  She has also been asked to be the kenote speaker at the OSU/IU 2012 Confference in Febuary.  Dr. Williams also recently returned from a trip to China as part of the China/US project through AFS focusing on folklore and building relationships within the Southeast provinces of the People's Republic of China.

 

Dr. Johnston Njoku

Dr. Njoku recently established a Freedom to Freedom Trail for the descendantsof slaves so they can trace their journey from Virginia to Arochukwu and ultimately the greater Igboland.  He also recently established the West African Cultural Heritage Education and Training (WACHET) Institute in Bowling Green.  Over the last decade, in a related project, Dr. Njoku helped to establish the Igbo Farm Village, which is a part of the American Frontier Culture Museum of Virginia.  The village is a  state-owned outdoor museum exhibit designed to educate the American public about the origins of the roughly 30,000 slaves that were taken from Igboland in south eastern Nigeria.  Dr. Njoku went with the Frontier Culture Museum Foundation to Nigeria for research and conducts summer cultural immersion classes and weekend institutes at the Igbo Farm Village.