Gearing up for new students
- Published: July 28, 2011
Getting ready for the arrival of its first group of students, Antioch College recently announced the hiring of its new admissions dean and of the final tenure-track faculty member.
New faculty began their jobs on Monday, July 18, and are this week settling into their offices and meeting others in the Antioch College community, according to Hassan Rahmanian, the college’s vice president for academic affairs. The college’s 35 students will arrive on campus for orientation September 24 and begin classes on Oct. 4.
“It’s pretty exciting,” said Rahmanian. “It feels like we’re really getting closer to opening.”
The new faculty hire — Anneris Coria-Navia, who will teach Spanish — concludes the college’s search for six tenure-track faculty members. Earlier, faculty were hired in philosophy, literature, chemistry, cultural anthropology and art.
According to Hassan, adjunct faculty will be hired where needed after consultation with the incoming new full-time faculty. Some visiting faculty positions will also be open, and where possible, Rahmanian said he hopes to use former Antioch College faculty in those positions. The college is also considering several proposals for artists-in-residence.
And with the hiring of the new dean of admissions, the college’s senior leadership positions are now filled, according to Antioch Director of Communications Gariot Louima.
The new dean of admissions and financial aid, Cezar O. Mesquita, is currently the director of admissions at The College of Wooster. He was hired after a nationwide search that began in the spring.
In a phone interview Tuesday, Mesquita said he is excited to begin his new job on Aug. 1.
“It’s not often that one has an opportunity to contribute to the rebirth of an institution, and beyond that one with such a prominent place in the history of American higher education,” he said. “It was such a tremendous opportunity and I needed to be a part of it.”
Mesquita and his family — he and his wife have children ages 9, 8 and 5 — are currently looking for a house in the village and hope to move before the school year begins, he said.
At Wooster, he developed and managed an operating budget of $1.4 million, supervised admissions staff and coordinated an integrated marketing, recruitment and enrollment plan, according to an Antioch College press release.
He worked at Wooster since 2009, and before that served as director of admissions at Doane College. Mesquita had previously held several positions at the University of Denver, including director of diversity enrollment and assistant director of admission. He also served as interim executive director and assistant director of the Latin American Educational Foundation, a Denver-based nonprofit that promotes access to higher education for Hispanics.
Mesquita has a bachelors in Spanish, with minors in French, Portuguese and international affairs, from the University of Nebraska. He earned a masters in Latin American Studies at the University of Alabama.
Coria-Navia currently teaches a beginning Spanish class for health professionls and a music appreciation class at Kettering College, along with beginning and intermediate Spanish at Wright State University. She brings to the position a decade of K-12 and college-level Spanish instruction, along with two decades of music education in this country and abroad.
As a Spanish instructor, Coria-Navia has taught at the Redlands Adventist Academy in Redlands, Calif., and St. Mary’s Catholic School in Ann Arbor, Mich. As a music educator, she taught courses in appreciation and performance at Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Mich., Lake Michigan College and the Universidad Adventista de Montemorelos.
She has a bachelors in piano performance and music education from the Universidad Adventista del Plata in Argentina and a masters in music education and education from Andrews University. She has a masters in Spanish from Miami University in Ohio and a doctorate in education in education leadership from the University of Southern California.
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