RSU Adds Five More Full-Time Faculty Members

Rogers State University has added more full-time faculty members for the fall semester.

The University of Oklahoma Board of Regents, the governing board for RSU, approved the hiring of five more full-time faculty members in addition to eight other full-time faculty members who were hired earlier this summer. The regents held a meeting on Tuesday, June 22, in Lawton.

Joining the RSU faculty this fall will be Dr. Thomas Carment, assistant professor of business, Dr. Sharon Fernlund, assistant professor of social and behavioral sciences, Dr. Nat Hardy, assistant professor of communications and fine arts, Carla Lynch, instructor of health sciences, and Dr. John Sawyer, assistant professor of mathematics and science.

“The addition of more than a dozen new full-time, highly qualified faculty members beginning this fall will significantly improve the quality of an RSU education and enhance the level of instruction provided to our students,” said RSU President Dr. Joe Wiley. “The new faculty members will help to accommodate the extensive growth we are experiencing at the university.”

About the New RSU Faculty Members

Dr. Carment has 23 years of teaching experience in financial and managerial accounting. His research interests include capital markets, firm performance and financial reporting. He has written a variety of articles in scholarly journals. He has been on the faculty of Northeastern State University in Tahlequah since 1979. He also has taught at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He received doctoral and master’s degrees from Oklahoma State University, and bachelor’s degrees from OSU and NSU. He also is a certified public accountant.

Dr. Fernlund currently is writing a book based on her doctoral dissertation titled “Wife Beating, Activism and the Politics of Knowledge.” She has several years of experience as a social worker. She has served on the faculties of St. Louis Community College, Concordia College, Jamestown College, Phillips University, Missouri Southern State College and Oklahoma State University. She received doctoral and master’s degrees from OSU and a bachelor’s degree from Phillips University.

Dr. Hardy has received several awards for his poetry including the Robert Penn Warren Memorial Award for Poetry, Louise Gluck Academy of American Poets Award for Poetry and others. His poetry has been published in a variety of publications including Prairie Poetry and Exquisite Corpse. He most recently taught at Oklahoma State University, where he was the editor of the Cimarron Review, a quarterly literary journal of poetry, essays, visual art and other literary work. He also has served on the faculties of Louisiana State University and the University of Alberta in Canada. He received a doctoral degree from the University of Alberta and master’s degrees from Louisiana State University and McMaster University. He has submitted a collection of poems titled “In the Temple of Off-Ramps” for book publication.

Lynch has several years of experience as a registered nurse, working in emergency medicine, psychiatry and neonatal care. She has a bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of Oklahoma and is currently pursuing a master’s degree.

Dr. Sawyer has a career of managing chemical plants and is a researcher who holds a patent on “the treatment of diesel exhaust gas using zeolite catalyst.” He most recently managed two chemical plants for the Toxco company, which manufactures lithium hydroxide and inorganic fluorides. At Toxco, he increased plant output, on-time shipments and product quality, while reducing work-related injuries. He also managed chemical plants for the Atofina company and worked as an engineer at Allied Signal Environmental Catalysts. He has taught at the University of Tulsa. He received doctoral and master’s degrees in chemical engineering and a master’s in business administration, all from TU, and a bachelor’s degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

For more information on RSU admission procedures and academic programs, call (918) 343-7546 or 1-800-256-7511.