6/5/07 - New Liberal Arts program recognizes promising faculty members

Dean Charles A. Johnson is pleased to announce the appointment of four inaugural Ray A. Rothrock ’77 Faculty Research Fellows in the College of Liberal Arts. They are Elisabeth Ellis, political science; Theodore George, philosophy; Hilaire Kallendorf, Hispanic studies; and Stephanie Payne, psychology. All four have been promoted to associate professor with tenure, effective Sept. 1, 2007.

“The Rothrock Fellows program is the beginning of a new initiative in the College of Liberal Arts that we believe will pay scholarly dividends for our students and for the respective fields of knowledge in which our promising associate professors work,” said Johnson.

The Rothrock Faculty Research Fellowships recognize a select number of newly promoted associate professors with three-year awards of $5,000 per year. The faculty will use these awards to support research and teaching projects that will aid in their promotion to full professor.

Ellis received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of California at Berkeley in 1999. She joined the Texas A&M University faculty in 2000 as an assistant professor. She specializes in political theory and the history of ideas. George earned his Ph.D. in philosophy from Villanova University in 2000, and joined the philosophy faculty at Texas A&M in the fall of 2001. He specializes in post-Kantian continental philosophy.

Kallendorf holds a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Princeton University. Her research examines many aspects of religious experience, especially as belief relates to literature and culture. Payne joined the psychology faculty at Texas A&M in 2000 after completing her Ph.D. in psychology at George Mason University. She specializes in industrial/organizational psychology and teaches courses in experimental and personnel psychology.

This program is made possible by a generous gift from Ray Rothrock of Portola Valley, Calif. Rothrock is a 1977 graduate in nuclear engineering. He is a managing general partner at Venrock Associates in Menlo Park, Calif., one of the oldest venture capital firms in the United States.

His gift for the Fellows Program came during the One Spirit One Vision campaign and will become the third endowment Rothrock has funded in the College of Liberal Arts. He and his wife, Meredith, previously endowed an excellence fund for the college and endowed a faculty chair in music.

Rothrock supports several programs at Texas A&M, including the J. Wayne Stark Endowed Fund in the Memorial Student Center, the nuclear engineering development fund and the Association of Former Students annual fund.

A past director with The Association of Former Students, Rothrock co-chaired the arts and sciences group for Texas A&M’s Vision 2020 initiative. He currently serves on the Board of Trustees for the Texas A&M Foundation where he is the Chairman of the Foundation's Investment Committee.

Erin Wood