Humanities Division

MFA Georgia College

Penny Dearmin holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Georgia College as the recipient of the Flannery O’Connor Scholarship. She also served as the Creative Nonfiction Assistant Editor for Arts & Letters and had the honor of teaching creative writing to seventh-grade students in the Early College program. She instills a sense of confidence in every college student, regardless of his or her current ability level, that each will become a better writer and literary citizen.

Assistant Professor Dearmin recently moderated a panel at Andalusia in Andalucía: An International Conference on Flannery O’Connor in Seville, Spain. Her critical paper “A New View” placed second for the Sarah Gordon Award; she is expounding on this analysis of O’Connor in a collection of literary criticism.

As the Director of the IWRC, Ms. Dearmin is delighted to continue serving students on an individual and direct basis. She looks forward to sharing her passion for the written and spoken word at Andrew College. Her own creative nonfiction focuses on the marginalization of women and children in the court system. She’ll be speaking on this topic at AWP’s 2018 conference and is currently hard at work on her memoir, Little Deaths.

B.S. Ed. Valdosta State University, M.S. Ed. Georgia Southwestern State University

Professor Amanda Knight has taught at Andrew College since 1999 after having thirteen years of experience teaching at the high school level, and in addition to teaching, she serves as the Coordinator of Program Development and Accreditation.  Her teaching experience enables her to understand her students’ backgrounds in their progress toward becoming successful college-level writers.  Professor Knight has shared her unique process of teaching punctuation and sentence structure in her book Punctuation Decoded.  In addition, Professor Knight was awarded a Fulbright-Hays Grant to study in Lithuania, Latvia, and Russia in 2004, and she led a Fulbright-Hays study group of professors and teachers to South Korea and China in 2010.  She serves as the faculty liaison for the student exchange between Andrew College and Pai Chai University in Daejeon, South Korea, Andrew College’s sister Methodist institution, and she strives to incorporate international cultural components in her classes whenever possible.  Professor Knight enjoys teaching and working with young adults.  She was chosen as a Governor’s Teaching Fellow in 2017, and she reports, “I love what I do!  I feel that I make a significant difference in helping my students work toward their goals of achieving college degrees.”

Farrah R. Senn holds an Ed. D in Higher Education Leadership, an MA in English, an MPA with a concentration in Political Science, and a bachelor’s in Journalism. She currently teaches composition, American Literature, World Literature, Humanities and Education courses at Andrew College. She also serves on the Educational Program Committee and chairs the Retention Committee and the Institutional Effectiveness Committee. In addition, she is co-editor of the Andrew College literary journal, Spire Light: A Journal of Creative Expression. She previously served as the Learning Support Division Coordinator and co-chair of the QEP.

She has worked in print media as both a daily reporter and a weekly editor, has served as Director of Development and President of the Wilkinson County Chamber of Commerce, and worked for the University of Georgia as an Archway Professional doing special projects for government. She previously taught composition at Georgia Southern University in the Writing and Linguistics Department and taught composition and literature as Assistant Professor at Brewton-Parker College in Mount Vernon, Ga., for three years.

While at BPC, she served as advisor to English majors, Sigma Tau Delta faculty representative, advisor to the student literary journal The Oracle, and as the Interim Chair of the Division of Humanities and Behavioral Sciences. She is a member of the Georgia Writer’s Association, the F. Scott Fitzgerald International Society, and the Society for the Study of the Short Story, and is the editor-in-chief of the Journal of the Georgia Philological Association. Her research interests are American Literature and Creative Writing.

B.A. English Georgia Southwestern State University, M.A.T. English Georgia College and State University

Assistant Professor of Learning Support English Katie Dodrill is excited to begin a career at Andrew College after eight years in the public school system. She majored in English at Georgia Southwestern State University, where she was especially interested in creative writing, placing in the Dolores Capitan Writing Competition twice and publishing short stories in the college journal. In 2007, Professor Dodrill received a Master of Arts in Teaching English from Georgia College & State University, and her degrees and teaching experience have prepared her to assist students in developing and honing their writing skills at both the Learning Support and college levels. Professor Harris is passionate about grammar, and while she acknowledges that not everyone shares her love of syntax and semicolons, she tries to instill that same passion in her students. “Students MUST be proficient in writing in order to be successful in college,” says Professor Dodrill, “and I enjoy helping students become more confident in their writing ability.” When she is not grading essays, Professor Dodrill enjoys reading, swimming, and spending time with her family.

Rev. Dr. Ivelisse Quiñones completed a Doctorate in Ministry (DMin) at Drew School of Theology in 2011. Her Master in Divinity (MDiv) is from Candler School of Theology. She is a fulltime elder currently appointed to serve as the Pastor of Cuthbert United Methodist Church and Chaplain of Andrew College. In August 2019 she joined the Andrew College Humanities Department as the Adjunct Religion Instructor.

Ivelisse has two sons and four grandchildren. Her only granddaughter is in her senior year at Oshkosh University in Wisconsin. Ivelisse enjoys traveling around the world while learning from the experience. She also likes watching telenovelas (soap operas) at night.