Liberal Arts welcomes new members to college's leadership team

This fall, the College of Liberal Arts welcomes two new department chairs and one new program director to its leadership team. The Department of Philosophy will now be led by G. Michael Watkins, and the Department of Psychological Sciences will be led by Daniel Svyantek. Janice E. Clifford is the new director of the Women's and Gender Studies program.

Michael Watkins has taught at Auburn for over 20 years, during which time he has also held adjunct and visiting appointments at Dalhousie University in Canada, the University of Rijeka in Croatia and Cornell. He publishes in metaphysics, philosophy of mind, aesthetics and ethics, with special interests in philosophical problems related to color, perception, and objectivity. He is a past Lanier Professor and a past chair of the Department of Philosophy.

Daniel Svyantek has been active in the development of the MS online program in Industrial-Organizational Psychology here at Auburn. He is currently editing two books describing the effects of COVID-19 on organizations, and the success and failure of organizational leaders during the pandemic. He is also beginning research in the area of adult neurodiversity in the workplace. Svyantek previously served as department chair here from 2008-2014.

Janice E. Clifford is an associate professor of sociology. She teaches and conducts research in the areas of violent crime, violence against women, and juvenile delinquency with focus on both victimization and offending behavior. The scope of her research is both national and international. Her outreach activities involve co-directing CSI: Auburn, a science literacy program for grades 5-8 that provides education about forensic sciences within an academic context and informs as to its use in various social science disciplines. She is co-editor of Female Victims of Crime: Reality Reconsidered, and her work has been published in Violence Against Women, International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, Race and Justice, Journal of Quantitative Criminology and Homicide Studies.