MLA Staff Liaisons
Paula Krebs, Executive Director of MLA
MLA | pkrebs@mla.org
Janine Utell, Program Manager of Professional Development
MLA | jutell@mla.org
Stacey Lee Donohue, MLA Executive Council Adviser
MLA executive Council | sdonohue@cocc.edu
MLA Committee on Community College Members
Douglas Keith Anthis, Committee Member (2023-2026)
Houston Community College | ouglas.anthis@hccs.edu
Cornelius Fortune, Committee Member (2024-2025)
Washtenaw Community College (WCC) & Jackson College | cofortune@wccnet.edu
Cornelius Fortune (PhD) has published in such venues as Yahoo News, CinemaBlend, The Advocate, The Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market, Midwest Living, In the Fray, The Journal of American Culture, and others. He holds an MA in English Literature and has taught composition, technical writing, as well as poetry and drama at Jackson College. Before going into education, he served as managing editor of the Michigan Chronicle –– the state’s oldest weekly black newspaper –– and senior editor of BLAC Detroit magazine. His research areas include cultural rhetorics, autoethnography, digital humanities, and first year writing (FYW).
Tomonori Nagano, Committee Member (2022-2025)
LaGuardia Community College | tnagano@lagcc.cuny.edu
Dr. Tomonori Nagano is a Professor of Japanese and Linguistics. He received his Ph.D. and M.Phil. in Linguistics from the CUNY Graduate Center and his MA in TESOL from New York University. His research interests are second language acquisition and Japanese as a heritage language. Dr. Nagano published papers in several journals, including Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, Modern Language Journal, and Foreign Language Annals [See https://www.t-nagano.com/publications/ for the publication list]. Dr. Nagano teaches all levels of Japanese and introductory courses in linguistics and bilingualism. Dr. Nagano is a certified ACTFL OPI Tester in Japanes.
Amee Schmidt, Committee Member (2022-2025) and Committee Chair in 2023-2024
Marshalltown Community College | Amee.Schmidt@iavalley.edu
Amee Schmidt has been teaching writing for over 20 years. Currently, she is an Associate Professor of English at Marshalltown Community College, teaching developmental-to-advanced composition, creative writing, and literature. She holds a dual B.A. in English Literature and Creative Writing from Saginaw Valley State University and an M.A. in Creative Writing from Central Michigan University. While studying for her degrees, she worked as a writing tutor and administrator of writing centers. Schmidt also has worked as an editor and publisher for over 15 years and has designed over 150 books by authors from around the world. She is a published poet and fiction writer, and she has just finished the first draft of her first novel for which she’s shopping for an agent. Her side-gigs include editing, assisted self-publishing, hiking, playing pool, and brushing her two fluffy cats.
Erika Stevens, Committee Member (2024-2027)
Walters State Community College | erika.stevens@ws.edu
With more than 30 years of K-16 teaching experience in the public, private, and homeschool realms, Dr. Erika Stevens is currently a Professor of Spanish and Humanities and Lead Faculty for Foreign Languages at Walters State Community College in East Tennessee. She earned her Ed.D. in Instruction and Curriculum Leadership – Instructional Design and Technology from the University of Memphis. She specializes in creating and promoting communicative, online Spanish courses as well as LSP Spanish courses to meet the needs of students and employers. She has created a Spanish Certificate program which ties to Workforce Spanish to meet the needs of students who may not be able to take Spanish classes with their degree programs. This is the first academic certificate at a community college in the State of Tennessee. She is also involved in study abroad where she serves as the Spain Program Director for the Tennessee Consortium for International Studies. Dr. Stevens has been recognized as the TWLTA Jacqueline Elliott Award winner for outstanding service in higher education world languages (2022), the Community College Teacher of the Year for AATSP (2023), and the SCOLT Educator of Excellence (2024). Her current project is leading a team with funding from a national grant to create nine new LSP Spanish courses with some OER materials to meet ongoing demand.
Elizabeth J. Toohey, Committee Member (2024-2027)
Queensborough Community College | etoohey@qcc.cuny.edu
Elizabeth Toohey is an associate professor of English at Queensborough Community College, part of the consortium of the City University of New York (CUNY). She specializes in her teaching and scholarship in contemporary fiction and film and in journalism. She has published with the Nieman Institute for Journalism on the value of journalism as a publication lab as means to strengthen students’ writing, media literacy and civic engagement, for which she was awarded a fellowship and residency by Harvard University. As a cultural critic, she reviews books for the global newspaper the Christian Science Monitor on women’s studies, education, and American cultural studies. Her essays on the influence of 9/11 in contemporary film and novels have appeared in peer-reviewed volumes and journals, including Film International, the Journal of Religion & Film, Studies in the Novel, Persuasions, and Terror in Global Narrative: Representations of 9/11 in the Age of Late Capitalism.
Former Committee Members
Fabian Banga, Committee Chair (2019-2022)
Berkeley City College | fbanga@peralta.edu
Dr. Fabian Banga is a Professor and the Chair of the Modern Languages Department at Berkeley City College in Berkeley, CA; where he teaches Spanish composition, culture, and literature. He holds a Ph.D. (2004) and M.A. (2000) in Hispanic Languages & Literature from the University of California at Berkeley, and B.A (1998) in Spanish Language and Literature also from Berkeley. He has published 6 books and more than 80 articles of literary and cultural criticism in magazines and newspapers in Argentina and the US. His new book, Representation of Artificial Intelligence in the Arts, Vol. 1: Androids, Golems, and Prometheus (Peter Lang, 2019), explores the representation of robots and artificial intelligence in literature and films. It is the first book of a triad which includes a second book on automatons and a third one on the representation of technology and esoteric traditions in literature and films.
Chris Brown, Committee Member (2021-2024)
Midland College | c_brown972@hotmail.com
William Christopher Brown earned his Ph.D. in English from Indiana University Bloomington. He is Co-Chair of English & Language Arts, as well as a Professor of English & Technical Writing at Midland College (Texas). In addition to currently serving on the MLA’s Committee on Community Colleges, he has previously served on the Committee on Contingent Labor in the Profession and the Forum Executive Committee HEP Teaching as a Profession Committee. He also serves as chair of the MLA Liaison Committee for the Association for Business Communication.
Sharon Ahern Fechter, Committee Member (2021-2024)
Montgomery College | sharon.fechter@montgomerycollege.edu
Sharon Ahern Fechter, Ph.D, Dean of Humanities, Montgomery College, Maryland. Prior to becoming dean, Dr. Fechter served as Professor of Spanish and chair of the department of World Languages and Philosophy. She earned her Ph.D. from New York University. She has served as president of the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese (AATSP) and as the community college representative to the AATSP. Dr. Fechter has also served as an associate editor for the refereed journal Hispania and on the Montgomery County Public Schools Foreign Language Curriculum Advisory Committee. She is currently a member of the national work group to implement the recommendations of America’s Languages, published by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and serves as a member of the MLA’s Community College Committee. She has presented and published on a variety of topics dealing with community colleges, world language pedagogy, literature, distance education, and international education. Her publications include articles on the future of language education at community colleges.
Michael Jacobs, Committee Member (2021-2024) and Committee Chair in 2023-2024
Monroe Community College | mjacobs20@monroecc.edu
Michael Jacobs is Dean, Humanities and Social Sciences, at Monroe Community College in Rochester, New York. He has contributed essays and articles on both documentary literature and humanities education to Literary Journalism Studies; Let Us Now Praise Famous Men at 75: Anniversary Essays; Community College Humanities Review; Agee in Context: New Literary, Cultural, and Historical Essays; and the Association of American Colleges and Universities. He is also the founding Director of Monroe Community College’s Institute for the Humanities and currently serves as deputy director, National Conferences, for the Community College Humanities Association. Prior to his position at MCC, Michael was co-chair of English at Berkeley College in New York City, where he taught courses in writing, literature, and film from 2002 to 2017.
Jesse Katen, Committee Member (2019-2022)
SUNY Broome Community College | jesse@jessekaten.com
Jesse Katen teaches in the English Department and Honors Program at SUNY Broome Community College in Binghamton, New York. He has also owned the Jesse Katen School of Dance since 2004, teaching dance to students of all ages. He also travels as a professional dance competition judge. In addition to serving on the MLA’s Committee on Community Colleges, he serves on the Private Sector Committee of the National Dance Education Organization. He has received the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2019 and was named the 2016 Outstanding Dance Judge by the Association of Dance Conventions and Competitions at their awards gala in Las Vegas. Deeply interested in the intersections of teaching writing and teaching dance, his articles have appeared in Dance Education in Practice and the Journal of Dance Education and he serves on the editorial board of Dance Education in Practice.
Nina Knight (2019-2023) and Committee Chair in 2022-2023
Jackson Community College | knightninam@jccmi.edu
Nina Knight teaches in the Liberal Arts Department at Jackson Community College in Jackson, Michigan. She serves as Lead Faculty for Creative Writing and Lead Faculty for Composition in Corrections Education. In addition to serving on the MLA’s Committee on Community Colleges, she serves on National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Native American Caucus, and she is a board member of the IndigiStory Project. She has also received the Teacher of the Year award from the American Indian College fund in 2016 and 2017 and the Humanities Educator of the Year from the Michigan Humanities Council in 2018. She is currently working on a book for parents of transgendered children.
Sophie Maríñez, Committee Member (2020-2022)
The Borough of Manhattan Community College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York | smarinez@bmcc.cuny.edu
Sophie Maríñez is an awardee of the Mellon/ACLS Community Colleges Fellowship and a Professor of French and Spanish at the Borough of Manhattan Community College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York. She is currently working on a monograph tentatively titled Spirals in the Caribbean: Representing Violence in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.