Shawn T. Beattie

Manager of Educational Technology

• Phone: 309-794-7647
• Email: ShawnBeattie@augustana.edu
• Office: Sorensen 163

Shawn is a graduate of Augustana College with a major in Math & Computer Science and earned his M.S. degree in Instructional Technology from Western Illinois University.  He has worked in technology support at Augustana since 1995, and has advanced to the position of Educational Technology Manager. 

Specializations: ITS, Moodle, Educational technology, Audio recording, Video recording, Telecommunications, Instructional design

Mary L. Tatro

Technical Services Librarian and Assistant Professor

• Phone: 309-794-7824
• Email: MaryTatro@augustana.edu
• Office: Tredway Library 220

Specializations: Library

Wendy Hilton-Morrow

Professor of Communication Studies

• Phone: 309-794-7282
• Email: WendyHilton-Morrow@augustana.edu
• Office: Old Main 208

Dr. Wendy Hilton-Morrow holds the rank of professor of communication studies.  Her teaching and research interests include gender, sexuality, and the media, media history and local television news. Her textbook (with Kathleen Battles) "Sexual Identities and the Media: An Introduction" (Routledge, 2015) introduces students to key debates in this important contemporary issue.  

Her co-edited collection "War of the Worlds to Social Media: Mediated Communication in Times of Crisis" (Peter Lang, 2013) marked the 75th anniversary of the original "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast, contemplating its relevance for our understanding of contemporary media crises. 

Dr. Hilton-Morrow, a 1994 graduate of Augustana College, is a former award-winning television journalist.

Specializations: Media history, Title IX, Academic affairs

Anne M. Earel

Research and Instruction Librarian and Assistant Professor

• Phone: 309-794-7315
• Email: AnneEarel@augustana.edu
• Office: Tredway Library 222

I decided to pursue librarianship after working for a few years as an editor for Prentice Hall; I edited college-level biology and chemistry textbooks.  I loved the idea that my work was facilitating the learning process for college students, but in my office in Boston, I felt very far removed from the students I was trying to help.  I knew I wanted a career in academia, but with two very different majors as an undergrad and a wide variety of interests beyond those, I knew I would be unhappy focusing solely on one aspect of one subject, as one must in a PhD program.  Academic librarianship is a perfect fit for me; my broad interests and knowledge are an asset to me when I help students at the reference desk, and I learn new things on a daily basis!

As Research Help Coordinator, I manage the little details of our research help service - like creating our schedule - but I also get to explore ways in which we might best help and reach students.  I love learning about and implementing new technology, such as the chat box now found on the library homepage, and continually finding new ways to maintain the library's vital place in the academic and social lives of students.

Specializations: Library, Academic librarianship

Stefanie R. Bluemle

Library Director

• Phone: 309-794-7167
• Email: StefanieBluemle@augustana.edu
• Office: Tredway Library 217

I became the director of Augustana’s Thomas Tredway Library in summer 2022, after more than ten years on campus as a research & instruction librarian and library liaison to the humanities division. As director, I oversee the library’s operations and facilities, support collaboration between the library and other campus departments, and provide leadership in developing our strategic vision. Having previously served as Tredway Library’s instruction coordinator, I maintain a strong interest in information literacy and assessment.

I have published and presented at academic conferences on information literacy, assessment of student learning, and collaborations between special collections and other forms of information literacy instruction. My most recent scholarship focuses on the intersection between academic information literacy and national politics.

Selected publications

Bluemle, Stefanie R. “A Close Look at the Concept of Authority in Information Literacy.” Journal of New Librarianship 8, no. 2 (2023): 1-28.

Bluemle, Stefanie R. “Post-Facts: Information Literacy and Authority after the 2016 Election.” portal: Libraries and the Academy 18, no. 2 (2018): 265-282. [Winner of the 2019 Ilene F. Rockman Instruction Publication of the Year Award from the Association of College and Research Libraries and the portal: Libraries and the Academy 2019 Johns Hopkins University Press Award for Best Article]

Bluemle, Stefanie R., Amanda Y. Makula, and Margaret W. Rogal. “Learning by Doing: Performance Assessment of Information Literacy across the First-Year Curriculum.” College & Undergraduate Libraries 20, no. 3-4 (2013): 298-313. [2013 Top Twenty article, Library Instruction Round Table of the American Library Association]

Selected presentations

Bluemle, Stefanie R. and Sarah M. Horowitz. “Assessing Hands-On Learning in Special Collections: A Pilot Study.” Poster presented at the 2014 American Library Association Conference, Las Vegas, NV, June 28, 2014. [Presented as part of the first cohort of Assessment in Action]

Bluemle, Stefanie R. and Sarah M. Horowitz. “Beyond Search: Information Literacy, Special Collections, and the First Year.” Concurrent session at the National Resource Center’s 33rd Annual Conference on the First-Year Experience, San Diego, CA, February 18, 2014.

Bluemle, Stefanie R., Amanda Makula, and Margaret Rogal. “Concept/Context: Information Literacy and Assessment in the First Year.” Poster presented at the National Resource Center’s 32nd Annual Conference on the First-Year Experience, Orlando, FL, February 25, 2013.

Specializations: Library, Academic librarianship, Information literacy, Assessment

Kai S. Swanson he/him/his

Special Assistant to the President

• Phone: 309-794-7419
• Email: kaiswanson@augustana.edu
• Office: Bahls CLC 112

Kai Swanson, special assistant to the president since 2005, grew up in Rock Island, just across Lincoln Park from the college from which he would graduate in 1986. His past positions at Augustana include news editor for WVIK-Quad Cities NPR, public relations director for the college, and editor of the Augustana College Magazine. In 2011, he served as interim general manager of WVIK, then in 2014 was interim director of the Augustana Teaching Museum of Art.

Kai serves on the Rock Island County Board, is president of the Rock Island County Forest Preserve Commission, and serves on the boards of Rock Island’s Martin Luther King, Jr, Community Center, the Visit Quad Cities destination marketing organization, and the Genesius Guild classic outdoor theatre. He has been a frequent speaker for both the National Association of Presidential Assistants in Higher Education and the Association of Governing Boards.

Since 1996, he has presented Concert Conversations prior to each Quad City Symphony Orchestra concert, and since 2022 has been host of Saturday Morning Live, a weekly radio program. You can hear recent episodes at https://www.wvik.org/podcast/saturday-morning-live

Jason A. Koontz

Professor and Acting Co-Chair (Spring) of Biology

• Phone: 309-794-3442
• Email: JasonKoontz@augustana.edu
• Office: Hanson Science Building 315

Prior to coming to Augustana, I worked as a botanist at the Illinois Natural History Survey, based on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus, doing plant surveys at road construction sites and maintaining a research program in molecular plant systematics (using DNA to understand how plants groups are related to one another).

At Augustana I shifted my research towards conservation genetics (using DNA to unravel levels and patterns of genetic variation to aid management decisions) of rare plants in Illinois and California focusing on the larkspur genus, Delphinium. I am continuing to study several rare species of larkspurs in California. I revised the Delphinium treatment for the Jepson Manual 2nd ed, the flora of California. I am also writing a field guide to the Southern California larkspurs.

In Illinois, my students and I are studying the state-endangered hill prairie larkspur that is restricted to three counties in Western Illinois. I am also the director of the Augustana Herbarium and students and I are currently getting the entire collection digitized and databased with the Consortium of Midwest Herbaria

I teach introductory courses in biology and environmental studies, conservation biology, and Senior Inquiries in conservation biology and natural history collections.

I strive to have interactive courses that get students involved and engaged with the material. I want to help my students connect their coursework to the rest of their major(s)/minor(s), non-biology and environmental studies course work, and their lives.

As biologists we are often perceived as being stuck in a lab wearing white lab coats. I hope that my students and I can change that perception while working to integrate our passion for living things with issues like social and environmental justice.
 

Specializations: Plant conservation biology, Native plants, Hill prairies, Delphinium, Larkspur, Botany

Eric Stewart

Professor and Chair of Religion

• Phone: 309-794-7286
• Email: EricStewart@augustana.edu
• Office: Old Main 6

My research centers on understanding various early Jewish and Christian groups within the ancient Mediterranean world. My first book, Gathered Around Jesus: An Alternative Spatial Practice in the Gospel of Mark, uses models and methods from cultural geography and postcolonial theory in order to consider how Mark's understanding of the spaces in which Jesus traveled, lived, and worked relate to other types of literary presentations of geography in antiquity. My second book, Peter: First Generation Member of the Jesus Movement, describes the various ways in which Peter was characterized by New Testament authors. These various rhetorical presentations of Peter show how Peter's reputation changed in different times and places through the first hundred years of the Jesus Movement. 

My recent work focuses on masculinity in early Christianity, ritual in early Christian literature, and further work on spatiality in early Christianity. Most recently, I delivered a paper at a ritual studies conference at the University of Rostock entitled, “‘Who Submits to Whom? Ritual and Masculine Performance in Josephus’ Account of the Meeting of Alexander and the Judean High Priest Jaddua in Ant. 11.302-347”. In 2014, I presented a paper on Jesus' masculinity in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa, and, in 2015, I presented a paper on Jesus' trial as ritual failure in the Paradosis Pilatou at the University of Gloucestershire at Cheltenham in England. I have also presented papers at the University of Pretoria and in Finland. 

While my research focus is largely on early Christianity and early Judaism, my teaching covers a much wider range. In the Religion Department, I teach Christian Origins, Jewish and Christian, Religion and Film, Scriptures, Jesus of Nazareth, and Gender and the Bible, and Theorizing Religion. For the WGSS program, I teach Masculinity in American Culture and for the Honors Program, I teach Reason.

Apart from my academic interests, I served as an assistant soccer coach for the men's team at Augustana College for five years. I have coached soccer for most of my adult life, having been a high school coach at Trinity School at Greenlawn in South Bend, Ind., for which I was named the Northern Indiana High School Boys Coach of the Year in 2003, an Olympic Development Program coach in Indiana, a member of Indiana Soccer's Coaching Education staff, and the Director of Coaching for Michiana Echo Soccer Club. 

I talked about gender in the ancient world as a guest on the ROI Relevant or Irrelevant radio show in April 2016. My updated list of publications and presentations can be found at this link. 
 

Specializations: Christian origins, New Testament, Gospels, Jesus, Theory of religion, Ritual

Tony J. Oliver

Continuing Lecturer-Associate Professor, Percussion, Concert Band

• Phone: 309-794-8966
• Email: TonyOliver@augustana.edu
• Office: Bergendoff Studio

Tony Oliver is an assistant professor of music and teaches music appreciation courses, in the FYI sequence (a liberal arts sequence for the first-year college student), and all things percussive.

Away from the college environment, he is often a clinician and adjudicator for percussion events, and is particularly involved in the New Horizons Music program, a life-long learning environment designed around the older adult musician. In conjunction with this program, he has taught at numerous camps and workshops throughout the United States.

He is the solo percussionist and timpanist for the Lake Placid Sinfonietta and a member of the Quad City Symphony Orchestra. Various other chamber and solo engagements round out his performance schedule each year.

He received degrees from the University of Iowa (BM, MA), where he studied with Thomas L. Davis, and from the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University (DMA), where he was a graduate fellow and studied with She-e Wu.

Dr. Oliver is a regional education artist for Pearl/Adams percussion, a Sabian cymbal artist, and proprietor of Curving Walkway Publications, whose percussion publications have been performed throughout North America and Europe.

Tony Oliver's website

Email him for office times and appointments.