Converse Announces 2025 Faculty Tenure & Promotions
In recognition of their commitment to teaching, scholarly and/or creative achievements, and service, the Converse University Board of Trustees has awarded promotion and tenure to three faculty members.
Converse University faculty are committed to teaching, scholarly and creative achievements, and their steadfast service to Converse students and the community.
Promotion to Full Professor
Dr. Laura Brown enjoys teaching English composition, courses on Shakespeare, the junior honors seminar and team-teaches interdisciplinary honors seminars. Dr. Brown has won numerous teaching awards, including the SC Independent Colleges and Universities (SCICU) “Excellence in Teaching Award” and Converse’s Katheryne Amelia Brown Teaching Award in 2005.
Dr. Brown co-founded the Nisbet Honors Program and has served on it for 25 years.
Dr. Brown’s research interests include early modern English sermons and other religious writing, Catholic Englishwomen, the role of the aural in early modern religion, and Shakespeare and his contemporaries. She has presented numerous conference papers at national or international conferences on research related to Mary Ward, early modern English Catholics, drama, hearing, sermons, and early modern England.
Promotion to Associate Professor
Dr. Stefania Licata teaches a variety of courses at Converse, including Spanish language, literature and culture, and has introduced several new electives for majors and non-majors. Dr. Licata is the founder and director of the Spanish Writing and Language Center in the Mickel Library.
Originally from the Mediterranean basin, Dr. Licata’s firsthand experience with the intersections and cultural crossings unique to this area played a crucial part in defining her research’s focus on migration and cultural representations between Africa and Spain, during the twentieth and the twenty-first centuries.
Dr. Licata is an active member of the Centro de Estudios Afro-Hispánicos (CEAH) at the UNED – Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, in Madrid. She is a member of the Standing Committee for International Exchange and Outreach for the College Language Association.
Morgan Strickland teaches a variety of classes for the Master of Marriage and Family Therapy program at Converse University and is the 2023 recipient of the Dukes Family Award for Faculty Scholarly and Creative Achievement. Dr. Strickland thrives on mentoring and collaborating with students on research projects.
Dr. Strickland’s personal research focuses on family violence and how survivors can remain resilient to adverse outcomes. She is interested in how violence is perpetuated through communication technologies and how MFTs and other mental health professionals can better assess and intervene in this pervasive problem. Her dissertation on cyber dating abuse won the 2020 AAMFT Foundation Graduate Student Research Award.
Converse University celebrates all our faculty, who are dedicated to empowering and celebrating our students.