Tanya Bennett began teaching at NGCSU in 2001.  She came to Dahlonega after having taught at University of Tennessee for five years.  She received her Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee in 1996, her M.A. from Texas A&M University in 1989, and her B.A. from Angelo State University in 1986.  Currently, she teaches such courses as African American Literature, Contemporary American Literature, and Freshman Composition.  Her special interest is in 20th century American fiction, especially Southern and Multicultural.  In addition to her teaching, she is a member of the Gender Studies Council and the Honors Council.  Her publications include articles on the fiction of Lee Smith, Ana Castillo, and Lorraine Lopez, as well as on teaching pedagogy.  When she’s not teaching, Dr. Bennett enjoys listening to blue grass music, gardening, and playing with her raucous family, made up of her husband Chuck, and their children, Zach, Luke, and Tyler.

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Wendy Kurant-Rollins, Assistant Professor of English, received her B.A. from Oglethorpe University and her Ph D. from University of Georgia.  Dr. Kurant-Rollins taught at Wilmington College just outside of Cincinnati before coming to North Georgia College & State University in 2004.  Her fields of interest include American literature, particularly that of the nineteenth century and that related to the Civil War, southern literature, nineteenth century and modernist British literature, and the domestic novel.  Her article exploring the interplay of domestic and monarchical discipline in Mary Boykin Chesnut’s Two Years was published in The Southern Literary Journal, and Dr. Kurant continues to work on revising her book project on Chesnut.  To give herself a respite from promoting Chesnut worldwide, she is also working on an article about Walt Whitman’s imperialist depictions of the South.   

Ron Martz comes to NGCSU as a journalism instructor after nearly 40 years in the newspaper business as a reporter and editor, the last 26 with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He has reported from more than 25 foreign countries on a variety of national and international security issues including the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003 as an embedded reporter with U.S. Army forces; the incarceration of Taliban and al-Qaida prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in February 2002; the arrival of U.S. troops in Croatia and Bosnia in the winter of 1995-96; the Persian Gulf War in Saudi Arabia and Iraq in 1990-91; the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1988; the international drug trade in Burma, Thailand, and South America in 1987-88; and the Contra-Sandinista war in Central America in 1984. He was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in two categories in 2004 for his coverage of the war in Iraq and was named Journalist of the Year by the Atlanta Press Club and Cox Newspapers Writer of the Year. He is a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, a graduate of the University of South Florida with a B.A. in Mass Communications, and the co-author of four books on military history. He has just finished a fifth book on national disaster preparedness with retired Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré which will be published in early 2009. He is studying for a master’s degree in military history from Austin Peay State University, is the president and a founding member of Military Reporters & Editors, and is a volunteer reader for the blind with Georgia Public Broadcasting’s Georgia Radio Reading Service. He and his wife, Mary, who is a technical writer, have five children, two grandchildren and live in Cumming.

A free-lance writer and photographer, Kathleen has worked in the business community and has done extensive volunteer work for non-profit organizations. She has also tutored extensively, all ages, in both academic and business contexts.  With a B.A. in English from Stetson University and an M.A. in Professional Writing at Kennesaw State, her background is in business communication and creative writing.  A playwright, Kathleen’s stage works include a series of ten-minute plays, Prominence Falls: Life in the Subdivision, and a full-length novel adaptation which has had two sold-out runs.  Her current project is a screenplay, Road Rovers, a full-length farce comedy, terribly loosely based on Aphra Behn’s The Rover. More than all of these other interests, she loves teaching young adults. She and her husband, Ben, have seven children—which explains her penchant for farce.

Linda Stallworth Williams is Professor of English and Coordinator of the English 4960 Internship and the English 7990 Graduate Capstone Course for teachers. A native of Atlanta, Georgia, she has earned the following academic degrees: BA in English from the State University of West Georgia; MA in English from the University of Central Oklahoma; and PhD in Higher Education Administration, with a concentration in Composition Pedagogy, from the University of Oklahoma. After teaching English at the University of Oklahoma and at Rose State College, Dr. Williams served as Coordinator of Faculty Development for the University System of Georgia's Board of Regents before joining the NGCSU faculty in 1997. In 2001, she received the Dorothy Golden Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Composition, an award presented annually at the regional Student Success in First-Year Composition Conference. In 2007, after a teaching career of more than twenty years, she was named the Georgia Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. Her scholarly work has been published in peer-reviewed journals that include The Journal of Business Communication, the Business Communication Quarterly, Dialogue: A Journal for Writing Specialists, and Research in Higher Education.