Archives

Jean Rigden

• M.A.E. in Educational Leadership, Marian College
• B.S.E. in Elementary Education, University of Wisconsin- Whitewater

I am an educator. I taught middle school for 9 years in three different school districts. I was a k-12 principal for 8 years. I began working at Ripon College in the Spring of 2010. I am licensed in Wisconsin as a Principal, Curriculum Director, Pupil Services Director, and 1-8 Grade Elementary Teacher and Math Teacher Grades 1-9. I teach courses in math education and the student teaching seminar. I have a Bachelors of Science in Elementary Education from UW-Whitewater and a Master’s Degree in Educational Administration from Marian University. I grew up in Fond du Lac and have only lived in Wisconsin.

Sandra Polcyn

• M.A. in Education, Olivet Nazarene University
• B. Mus., K12 Instrumental Music Education – Lawrence University
• A.S., UW-Fox Valley

William Nelson

• B.A. in Music Education, University of Wisconsin Parkside

I have been the clarinet and saxophone instructor at Ripon College since 1993. I was the band director at Ripon Middle School from 1988-2020. This fall I will be the band instructor at Xavier Elementary School in Appleton, and Seton Catholic School in Sheboygan. I am an active jazz performer throughout Wisconsin and I am a master adjudicator with the Wisconsin School Music Association.

George “Skip” Wittler

• Ph.D., University of Texas
• M.A., University of Montana
• B.A., Carleton College

Patrick Willoughby

• Ph.D., University of Minnesota
• B.S., University of Northern Iowa

I am an Associate Professor of Chemistry with a particular focus on organic synthesis. I teach Organic Chemistry courses along with Catalyst 120. I enjoy mentoring research students in the development of new methods for the synthesis of pharmaceutically-relevant molecules.

Robert Wallace

• Postdoctoral Fellowship (Aquatic Ecology), University of Washington
• Ph.D. Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire (Aquatic Ecology; Invertebrate Zoology)
• B.S. University of Rhode Island, Kingston

I have two professional passions, teaching and research; both revolve around aquatic ecology and invertebrates. While I have retired from formal teaching, that calling continues after a fashion. For the past eight years I have been active in the Green Lake Association, whose singular focus is on improving water quality in Green Lake (WI). However, I am still an active researcher, specifically with rotifers. These tiny (≤2 mm), invertebrates play vital roles as consumers, scavengers, and predators, eventually falling prey to insects and fish. Thus, their energy and nutrients pass up the food chain. Rotifers may be found anywhere liquid water is present for even a few days. While some inhabit near-shore marine waters, most rotifers are commonly found in inland waters, including lakes, ponds, streams, ephemeral desert basins, irrigation ditches, tire tracks, glacial meltwaters, and the water film of soils and plants. My research has included many of those habitats, but recently it has focused on deserts. Aquatic life there is caught between a duality: wet now and evaporating, soon to be dry for an indeterminate time, but to be wet again.

During the wet phase, rotifers and other invertebrates must prepare for inevitable drought by producing resting stages that withstand prolonged dryness. Deserts are also windy places and when storms sweep across the landscape they kick up dust from the dry basins and can transport resting stages long distances. We are interested in who survives transport and whether they can successfully colonize a new basin.

Mary Unger

• Ph.D., in English, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• M.A. in English, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• B.A. in English, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Touorizou Hervé Somé

• Ph.D. Social Foundations of Education, State University of New York at Buffalo
• Master’s degree in business with a specialization in project management (online), Aspen University
• M.A. African Literature
• B.A. Sociology-Anthropology, University of Ouagadougou
• B.A. African Literature

Barbara Sisson

• Postdoctoral Associate, Department of Pediatrics, Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute (formerly Children’s Memorial Research Center), Chicago, Illinois
• Ph.D., Northwestern University
• B.A., Lake Forest College

I am a developmental biologist interested in how cartilage cells get their shape. My lab studies this using zebrafish as a model system for human facial birth defects. I teach Introductory Biology, Scientific Writing and Communication, Cell Biology, Developmental Biology, and Cancer Biology.

David W. Scott

• M.A. in Mathematics, University of Wisconsin-Madison
• B.A. in Mathematics, Pomona College

The son of a Ripon College chemistry professor and associated with the college since 1962, I’ve worked with students since 1980. I served as men’s soccer coach from 1980-1995, left that when I was Director of Coaching Education for the Wisconsin Soccer Association to be assistant coach for 25 years at Marian University, and have now returned as assistant coach here. However, I began teaching part-time in the math department in 1982 and have taught full-time since 1984. In addition, for more than 20 years I have taught a fencing course for the college. I have also played trombone many semesters in the college jazz ensemble or the college orchestra.

For much of my time here our department had a philosophy that we should all be able to teach essentially any of the courses we offer in mathematics, and I have taught all of them multiple times with only a couple of exceptions. I have also taught a large number of courses in computer science over the years, developing our first courses in artificial intelligence and algorithms, as well as teaching programming in a variety of languages. I particularly like teaching courses in discrete math, algebraic structures, and geometry and topology (my area of study in graduate school), but I always teach the course in secondary teaching methods. I have great interest in education, and have served for 20 years on the Ripon school board. I am especially interested in students who want to be teachers at any level.

Henrik Schatzinger

• Ph.D., Political Science, University of Georgia
• M.A., Political Science, University of Kansas
• B.A., Political Science, University of Kiel, Germany

Rafael Francisco Salas

• M.F.A., The New York Academy of Art
• B.A., Macalester College

I am a Wisconsin-based artist. My artwork combines landscape, the legacy of portraiture, architecture, and country music into artwork evoking a strange, rural poetry. I am represented by Portrait Society Gallery in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

I am also an arts writer for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Newcity Art Chicago, The Isthmus Magazine and Urban Milwaukee.

In 2022, Governor Tony Evers appointed me to the Wisconsin Arts Board, the state agency responsible for the support and development of the arts throughout Wisconsin. I also serve on the Executive Board of the Museum of Wisconsin Art and the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters.

I am a Professor of Art and Chair of the Department of Art and Art History here at Ripon College.

Jody Roy

• Ph.D., Indiana University
• M.A., Indiana University
• B.A., Illinois College

I have been privileged to teach Ripon College students since 1992. As a Professor of Communication, I help students develop a variety of skills, ranging from advanced speaking and writing skills to the analytical and strategic skills necessary to create, evaluate and improve large-scale public communication campaigns.

The content of my courses spans from Classical Greek teachings on rhetoric to contemporary communication practices that influence information sharing and persuasion in areas ranging from popular music scenes to the fields of law enforcement and corrections.

Timothy Reed

• Ph. D., Spanish Peninsular Literature, Penn State University
• M.A., Spanish, University of Delaware
• B.A., Spanish, Music, Dickinson College

I grew up in Wilmington, Delaware, and earned B.A. degrees in Music and Spanish from Dickinson College, an M.A. in Spanish at the University of Delaware, and a Ph.D. in Contemporary Spanish Literature from Penn State. I spent my junior year abroad studying in Spain, and was fortunate to spend many summers there before moving to Wisconsin and “entering the real world.” My research focuses on contemporary Spanish literature, culture, and film, but I am really a generalist with multiple academic interests, so I love working for Ripon College because I get the chance to teach many different classes and work with wonderful students. I live in Appleton and in my free time enjoy reading, skiing, tennis, movies, singing, playing instruments and songwriting.

Dominique Poncelet

• Ph.D. in French, University of Wisconsin-Madison
• “Licence en Philologie Romane”, University of Louvain at Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
• “Agrégation en Philologie Romane”, University of Louvain at Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

I teach all levels of French, from the elementary to the advanced courses. French is my native language; I grew up near Bastogne in south-east Belgium and moved to the U.S. in 1991. I received my PhD in French from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1999, and at about that time I joined the Ripon College faculty.

I am fascinated by cultures, languages, literature, and intercultural encounters and I share these interests with my students in my French courses, as well as in other classes I teach: Catalyst 110 and 210, linguistics, and elementary Latin.

I serve as an advisor for minors in French and multi-interested students; I also help students prepare for study-abroad programs in Paris, Montpellier (France), and Dakar (Senegal).

My research interests include 20th and 21st- century French poetry and the themes of memory and death in contemporary French novels.

Ann Pleiss Morris

• Ph.D. in English, University of Iowa (2011)
• M. Litt in Shakespeare & Renaissance Literature in Performance, Mary Baldwin College (2005)
• B.A. in English & Speech-Drama, Mount Mercy University (2002)

I teach courses in British literary history, women’s literature, theatre history, contemporary drama, Shakespeare, and composition. My current book project re-evaluates the place of women dramatists in the time of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Outside of work, I enjoy being a part of community theater projects, playing piano, working my way through my ever expanding to-be-read pile, and cross stitching.