Western Maryland College has announced eight faculty changes in the departments of education, foreign language, sociology, physics, special education and communication.
* Judith Coryell, formerly of Riverside, Calif., joins the education department as an associate professor. She has focused her career on teaching the deaf, with stints at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, Rochester Institute of Technology and Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. She also has taught on the primary and secondary school levels.
Dr. Coryell holds a doctorate in education curriculum and instruction from the University of Rochester in New York and a master's in special education for the deaf from California State University in Northridge.
She earned her bachelor's in nursing from San Diego State University. Most recently, she was a professor in the department of special education at California State University.
* Mohamed Esa has been promoted to assistant professor in the foreign language department. He speaks six languages, including Arabic and Hebrew. Dr. Esa is writing two publications and has published five works since 1986. He holds a doctorate and a master's degree from the University of Heidelberg in Germany. He will take a group of students on a trip to Germany, Austria and Switzerland next year.
* Columbia resident Colleen M. Galambos joins the sociology/social work department as an assistant professor. She a prolific writer on issues concerning the elderly, such as living wills, nursing homes and Alzheimer's disease.
She has served on the boards of a number of professional associations and has been awarded three grants. The most recent was a research grant awarded for 1992-1993 by the Baltimore Commission on Aging and Retirement Education titled, The Nursing Home as Part of an Urban Environment."
Ms. Galambos earned a master's in social work from the University of Maryland School of Social Work and Community Planning and a bachelor's in social work from Cornell University. She is pursuing a doctorate at Catholic University of America, where she expects to complete her dissertation in December.
Ms. Galambos is a psychiatric social work consultant at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore and a social work consultant at Manor Care in Towson. Before coming to Western Maryland College, she was an adjunct instructor in the Master's of Social Work program at the Catholic University of America National School of Social Service in Washington.
* David V. Guerra of Silver Spring joins the physics department as an assistant professor. He has worked as a National Research Council Postdoctoral Researcher with NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt and has taught physics at Montgomery College in Germantown and The Bullis School in Potomac. Dr. Guerra holds a doctorate and a master's in physics from American University and a bachelor's from Middlebury College in Vermont.
* Ramona Kerby, formerly of Fort Worth, Texas, joins the education department as an assistant professor. Formerly an elementary school librarian, Dr. Kerby is the author of several children's books, including "38 Weeks Till Summer Vacation," "Cockroaches" and "Friendly Bees, Ferocious Bees."
She holds a doctorate and a master's of library science from Texas Women's University. She also earned a master's in counseling education from Texas Christian University and a bachelor's in elementary education and Spanish from Texas Wesleyan University.
Dr. Kerby was an adjunct professor of Library and Information Science at Texas Women's University while she worked as an elementary school librarian in Arlington, Texas.
* Debra C. Lemke, formerly of North Carolina, joins the sociology/social work department as an assistant professor. She completed four community survey reports with the Iowa State University Extension Service, as well as a report with the Georgia Extension Service on "Environmental Knowledge and Perceptions of County Commissioners." She is focusing her research on value freedom and academic freedom.
Dr. Lemke holds a doctorate from Iowa State University and a master's and bachelor's from the University of Georgia. Before coming to Western Maryland, she was a visiting assistant professor at Western Carolina University and the University of Northern Iowa.
* Professor Joel Macht joins as the Laurence J. Adams Distinguished Chair of Special Education. He will coordinate the college's Human Services graduate program and will take over as chief executive officer of Target Inc., a nonprofit organization that provides residential, occupational and recreational services to people with developmental disabilities.
He has written several publications, including the book, "Poor Eaters: Helping Children Who Refuse to Eat." He has a doctorate in educational psychology from Arizona State University, a master's from Colorado State University and a bachelor's from the University of Miami.
* Jasna Meyer, formerly of Columbia, Mo., joins the communication department as assistant professor. Her American and Croatian background provides inspiration for much of her work, including her dissertation, "A cross-cultural analysis of conversational storytelling."
She earned a bachelor's in English from Fontbonne College in St. Louis and a master's in speech communication from the University of Missouri, Columbia, where she anticipates completing her doctorate this fall. Over the past five years, Ms. Meyer has been a teaching assistant at the University of Missouri.