School of Integrative Studies

Faculty + Staff

Undergraduate Programs

Business Administration | Communication Design | Digital Filmmaking | Education | English + Creative Writing | Fashion | Humanities

 

Graduate Programs

Master of Fine Arts in TV and Screenwriting

 

Business Administration

Dr. Scott Taylor

Assistant Professor, Business Administration Program Chair
D.B.A., California Southern University; M.A., University of Missouri; B.S., Missouri State University

Dr. Scott Taylor earned a Doctorate of Business Administration from California Southern University. His doctoral project focused on the economic impact of entrepreneurial policy. Taylor has also completed post-graduate work in public affairs at the University of Missouri, where he obtained a master’s degree in Public Administration. He received a Bachelor of Science in Management from Missouri State University.

Before accepting his current position at Stephens College, he served as an adjunct instructor for Stephens College since the Fall of 2018. He taught full-time at Moberly Area Community College, serving as the lead business faculty since the Fall of 2007. He was also an advisor to MACC’s award-winning Collegiate DECA chapter for over fourteen years and has received the National Collegiate DECA Advisor of the Year award multiple times.

Outside the classroom, Taylor serves on several boards and advisory committees and works as a subject matter expert for multiple publishing companies. He resides in Moberly, MO, on a horse ranch with his wife, Kendra. Over the years, Scott and Kendra have donated multiple horses to the Stephens College equestrian program. Scott has three adult children and two adult stepsons.

 

Dr. Kaneshya Lucas

Assistant Professor
M.B.A., M.Ed., William Woods University; Ph. Ed., Maryville University

Dr. Kaneshya Lucas has worked as an adjunct instructor in the Business Administration department for five years. This fall, she became an Assistant Professor in that same program, housed in the School of Integrated Studies. She comes to the college with a diverse educational background, having completed her Bachelor of Arts in Spanish at the University of Missouri - Columbia, two master's degrees: in Business Administration and Education from Williams Woods University, and most recently her Doctor of Education in Higher Education Leadership from Maryville University in St. Louis.

 

 

 

 

Communication Design

Dr. Bethanie Irons

Assistant Professor, Communication Design Program Chair
Ph.D., University of Missouri; M.F.A., University of Missouri; B.F.A., University of South Dakota

Dr. Bethanie Irons earned a B.F.A. in Art from the University of South Dakota and M.F.A. in Art from the University of Missouri. Irons also earned a Ph.D. in Art Education from the University of Missouri with an emphasis on higher education and teaching with technology. She is an artist and educator who is passionate about creative expression and its power in cultivating social change and personal growth. She seeks to empower and guide students in creating authentic, innovative work that expands their worldview and prepares them to become future design leaders.

 

 

Wilson Minshall

Adjunct Instructor

M.F.A., University of Missouri

Wilson Minshall is an intermedia artist from Little Rock, Arkansas and received their MFA in Painting and Drawing from the University of Missouri in Columbia in 2021. Their work begins with drawing and uses elements of collage to span varying media such as painting, design, printmaking, weaving, video and sound installation. Accumulating information from past historical archives as well as their own recorded memories, they materially alter research samples and pull forth localized networks of traces from their chosen source material. In doing so, they take the stance that excavating or refiguring overlooked pieces of lived experience across time, space and media allows for non-binary navigations of history and identity without privileging surface-level stereotypes. They recently co-organized, designed and curated the experimental exhibition Cage in Como: A Weekend with the John Cage Trust and Friends in 2021 at Hitt Records and the Sinquefield Music Center (Columbia, MO). They also co-curated the NIXED_INDEX juried art exhibition at the University of Missouri’s George Caleb Bingham Gallery in 2019 (Columbia, MO), and have performed sound pieces at the Marshall Arts Gallery (Memphis, TN) in 2018 and Cafe Berlin (Columbia, MO) in 2019. They have exhibited their work at the Marshall Arts Gallery in Memphis, TN (2017), the Hanger Gallery in Kansas City, MO (2019), the Serial Box Gallery in Columbia, MO (2018) and St. Charles Community College in St. Charles, MO (2020).

 

Miranda Richardson

Assistant Professor, The Kopenhaver Center Director

M.F.A., University of Missouri; B.A. University of Missouri

Miranda Richardson is an educator and multidisciplinary artist. She works in photography, text, sculpture, installation, and performance. She earned an M.F.A. in Sculpture from the University of Missouri and has been teaching for nearly 17 years. As the director of The Kopenhaver Center, Richardson is passionate about the advancement of women in communication. She is, also, the proud advisor for Creative Ink, and an Assistant Professor in Communication Design. 

 

 

 

Digital Filmmaking

Lizzie Germann

Assistant Professor of Digital Filmmaking 
M.F.A., Loyola Marymount University; B.A., University of Missouri

Lizzie Germann is a writer and director from Columbia, Mo., and is so excited to be at Stephens College! A Mizzou graduate, she holds an MFA in Writing & Producing for Television from Loyola Marymount University. Lizzie's directorial work includes short films, independent pilots, web series and commercials. Her work has shown across the country, including TV pilot CRESCENDO, which premiered at the Woods Hole Film Festival in 2020, and was accepted into the Catalyst Story Institute.

 

Liz Jones

Adjunct Instructor

MFA, Boston University

Liz Jones is a filmmaker and instructor who has been working in media production for over 15 years.  She studied Experimental and Documentary Film at Emerson College in Boston, MA, where she worked on productions for PBS, including Design SquadNOVA Science Now. She has also worked on independent film productions, and in 2017 received her MFA in Film Directing and Producing from Boston University. Liz is originally from Jefferson City, Missouri.

 

 

Education

Elizabeth Watson

Director of the Children’s School at Stephens College and Education Program Chair
B.A., Stephens College; M.Ed., University of Missouri-Columbia

Watson’s passion for education has been shaped over the past 16 years as a classroom teacher in both preschool and elementary and as an instructor in the college classroom. She started her career at Stephens College as an undergraduate student from Minnesota and received her early childhood degree and teaching certification. After her first year of teaching, she continued her education at the University of Missouri and received her master’s degree in curriculum and instruction with an emphasis in reading. This year, she will continue as a doctoral student at the University of Missouri in learning, teaching and curriculum with an emphasis in reading. As an early childhood and elementary educator, she believes the best way to enhance learning is to provide students with hands-on experiences which will create thought-provoking experiences for students to become independent creators.

 

Dr. Elizabeth Thomas '12

Assistant Professor, Early Childhood and Elementary Education

M.Ed., Columbia College; Ph.D., University of Missouri-Columbia

Dr. Elizabeth Thomas is an Assistant Professor of Early Childhood and Elementary Education at Stephens College. An alum of Stephens, class of 2012, Dr. Thomas taught in the public schools, obtained a master’s degree and certification in Reading Intervention from Columbia College and her Ph.D. in Special Education with an emphasis in Mathematics from the University of Missouri. She is passionate about making mathematics accessible to all students and getting pre-service teachers excited about that mission as well.

 

 

Dr. Sean Travis Clouse

Adjunct Instructor
Ph.D., M.A., B.S., University of Missouri-Columbia

Dr. Sean Travis Clouse earned his B.S. in psychology, M.A. in human development and family studies, M.A. in counseling psychology and Ph.D. in counseling psychology all from the University of Missouri-Columbia. A member of the Stephens faculty since 2006, he teaches courses in the Education, Psychology and Counseling programs. His courses focus on lifespan development, multicultural aspects of learning, social justice issues and counseling. He also serves as the certification officer for the early childhood and elementary education and school counseling programs. Clouse is a licensed psychologist in the state of Missouri and focuses his clinical work on adolescents and young adults.

 

 

English + Creative Writing

Dr. Ann Breidenbach

Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing
Ph.D., University of Missouri-Columbia, M.F.A., Pine Manor College, M.A., Western Michigan University, B.A., Central Michigan University

Dr. Ann Breidenbach is an assistant professor in the English and Creative Writing programs and teaches classes for the Women’s Studies minor. While working on her qualitative dissertation about the experience of menopause for second wave feminists living on women’s land in the Ozarks, she rediscovered her passion for writing. Breidenbach began taking seminars in creative nonfiction writing and eventually enrolled in an M.F.A. program. She brings an interdisciplinary approach and her identity as a writer to her teaching. She is working on a manuscript titled “Girlhood Cache,” which is a memoir told through a series of flash non-fiction essays. Her current research project, “Feminist Activism and the Women’s Film Festival: a Site for Social Change,” explores women’s film festivals as a means of feminist activism. Most recently she has presented her research at the European Network for Cinema and Media Studies annual conference and the University Film and Video Association annual conference. She earned her M.F.A. in creative writing from the Solstice Low-Residency M.F.A. in Creative Writing Program at Pine Manor College in Boston. She earned her Ph.D. in rural sociology with a graduate certificate in women’s and gender studies at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

 

Kristine Somerville

Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing
M.A., University of Missouri; B.A., College of the Ozarks

Kristine Somerville teaches contemporary literature, advanced composition, language ethics, nonfiction workshop, fiction workshop and the Harbinger publishing internship at Stephens College. Her short stories and prose poems have been published in various magazines, including The North American Review, Passages North, River City, Zone 3, The South Carolina Review and Quarterly West. Her essay "Katie Suber" received notable mention in Best American Essays, and her fiction has been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize. Her visual and “Found Text” features and omnibus reviews appear regularly in The Missouri Review. Somerville is the co-editor of TMR Books and faculty advisor of Harbinger and Sigma Tau Delta English Honor Society.

 

Phillip Overeem

Adjunct Instructor

​Phillip Overeem is a tutor in the Student Success Center as well as an adjunct freshman composition instructor. Hailing from southwest Missouri, he has been teaching since 1975, if swimming lessons count. He is an avid, omnivorous reader, and blogs about popular (and other kinds of) music at livingtolisten.blog.​​ In addition, he frequently reflects on his career in education on The Overeem Farewell Tour blog, where he is currently keeping a COVID-19 journal called "Cloister Commentary." ​Phil has taught and tutored at Stephens since 2013, and previously taught language arts, coached basketball and track, and sponsored student council, The Canterbury Society, and The Academy of Rock at Parkview High School in Springfield, Missouri, and David H. Hickman High School and Smithton Middle School in Columbia. He estimates that he has graded over 40,000 essays in his lifetime. 

Phil and his wife Nicole have weaknesses for cats, travel, inventive foods, and the Klackamas, Oregon band Dead Moon.

 

 

Fashion

Dr. Monica McMurry

Professor
Ph.D., M.Sc., University of Missouri-Columbia, B.F.A., Stephens College

Dr. Monica McMurry has 30 years of teaching and administrative experience in the fashion field. She previously served as Dean of the Stephens College School of Design and chaired the fashion programs at both Stephens and Columbia College. McMurry graduated summa cum laude from Stephens College with a B.F.A. in Fashion Design. She received her Master of Science and Ph.D. from the University of Missouri’s Textile and Apparel Management program and attended a design thinking workshop at Stanford. In her dissertation, "Jacqueline Kennedy’s Effect on Women: A Content Analysis of Her Style, Role and Thought as First Lady, 1958-1963," McMurry reviewed the most popular women’s magazines of the early 1960s and looked at how Jacqueline Kennedy was portrayed to the average woman via media mentions.

During her teaching career, McMurry has taught both studio and lecture courses for fashion design and product development and fashion marketing. Her areas of expertise include fashion history, curating and executing fashion exhibitions, menswear design, tailored design and couture and bespoke techniques. Other interests include sustainability, fair trade and textile upcycling. She is a member of the International Textile and Apparel Association (ITAA), the Costume Society of America (CSA) and Fashion Group International. McMurry has presented both national and international juried fashion designs and scholarly research. Her work with the Costume Museum and Research Library at Stephens College has given her the opportunity to speak across the nation about historic dress.

 

Kirsteen Buchanan

Professor
M.A., University of Missouri-Columbia

Kirsteen Buchanan, a Stephens alumna, has taught at Stephens for over 20 years. Her broad fashion industry experience in New York, Chicago and Dallas includes retail product development, branded design, product development for a sweater factory, domestic and offshore manufacturing, trend surveillance, creative fashion design and technical design. She also has designed costumes for the Okoboji Summer Theatre in Spirit Lake, Iowa, and for dance company productions in Dallas.

Buchanan has a Master of Arts specializing in visual communications from the Missouri School of Journalism. Buchanan's design practice aims to fuse beautiful product design with meaning. She focuses on the intersection of fashion, visual communication and language, using surface design and mixed media art to explore design concepts and a range of questions that center on transformation, connection, communication and storytelling. In 2019, Buchanan won the Next Generation Award in the Surface Design Association Exhibition in Print for her digitally printed designs: Borders That Unite, and Best Overall at the sustainable fashion show ScrapsKC ReVision for her dress made from contact lens packaging. She has exhibited work at several Surface Design Association international conference runway shows. She was a 2003 finalist in the GenArt/Florida Grapefruit Juice National Handbag Design Challenge, a 2002 finalist in the “Inspired by Threads” competition and a 2001 finalist in the Beefeater Bold Spirits Design Competition.

 

 

Humanities

Dr. James Terry

Associate Professor
Ph.D., M.A., University of Missouri-Columbia, B.A., Wesleyan University

Dr. James Terry is an archaeologist and art historian. He holds a Ph.D. in Classical Archaeology from the University of Missouri-Columbia. He has participated in archaeological field work in Israel, Jordan, Cyprus and Tunisia and, as a Fulbright Scholar, spent a year living in North Africa researching Late Roman and Early Byzantine tomb mosaics. His research interests include human sacrifice in ancient Greek art and the paleolithic roots of artistic pleasure.