Mason and Lobanov-Rostovsky promoted to full professor

Theodore O. Mason Jr. and Sergei Lobanov-Rostovsky, both members of Kenyon's English faculty, have won promotions to the rank of full professor. The recommendations of the Tenure and Promotion Committee were endorsed by the College's Board of Trustees at its October 29 meeting.

A faculty member since 1988, Mason is a specialist in African-American literature and literary theory who previously taught at the University of Virginia and Mount Holyoke and Trinity (Connecticut) colleges. He is also affiliated with the concentrations in African and African-American studies, which he directs, and women's and gender studies.

A former incumbent of Kenyon's John B. McCoy Distinguished Teaching Professorship, Mason has served beyond the College as chair of the membership committee and president of the Society for the Study of Narrative Literature; as a member of the staff of the reference series American Literary Scholarship; and as a contributor to the Oxford Companion to African-American Literature and the Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism. He graduated from Wesleyan University and earned his Ph.D. at Stanford University.

Lobanov-Rostovsky, who joined the faculty in 1993, is a Shakespeare scholar with interests in creative writing and film. A 2001 recipient of a Trustee Teaching Excellence Award, he is also a member of the women's and gender studies faculty.

In addition to his scholarly work, Lobanov-Rostovsky has written several novels, including The Blue Wall, Cold Steel Rain, and The Burying Field, under the pen name Kenneth Abel. He currently serves as a consulting editor to the Kenyon Review, with added responsibilities this year during editor David Lynn's term as director of the English department's Exeter Program--a program that Lobanov-Rostovsky himself has twice led. A graduate of Louisiana State University, he earned a master's degree in creative writing at Stanford University and a doctorate in English at Harvard University.

This was the first time promotions were considered at the October meeting, which will be the regular practice in the future. The Tenure and Promotion Committee's recommendations regarding tenure, as well as pre-tenure and performance reviews, will continue to be brought forward at the board's April meetings.

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