Before kicking off the 2024 Fall Semester, Goucher welcomes new faculty members to new positions on August 12th. Each professor has brought a wide range of academic disciplines, research, and teaching expertise in areas such as business, environmental science, history, and music.
Goucher College introduces two new Associate Professors, Dr. Kami Fletcher and Dr. Roy Belfield, along with two new Assistant Professors, Dr. Maureen Malomba and Dr. Christopher Torres.
Since the beginning of the 2024 fall semester, they have expressed their excitement to teach new courses, along with being able to help students develop a deeper understanding of inclusiveness and community and create a positive change.
“Inclusiveness is what I love at Goucher. I love the fact that everyone on this campus is validated. You can just be you,” Dr. Roy Belfield said.
Dr. Belfield, a new Associate Professor of Music, conducts the Goucher Choral Society, along with teaching choir, orchestra, and basic piano. He earned his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in organ performance at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music.
He has been actively involved in choral conducting, has expertise in choral compositions, and is an accompanist. Before teaching at Goucher, he was a composer and did church work for seven years. He, however, said his enjoyment and love of teaching came later during his time teaching elementary students in Chesterfield, Virginia.
“The original plan was church music,” Dr. Belfield said. “However, I did student teaching as a graduate student and I accidentally fell in love with teaching children.” On choosing Goucher, “Goucher feels right for two reasons,” he remarked, “Goucher feels right because I didn’t seek it. It found me; it sent me a message that somebody wanted me back at teaching. Also, I attended a small liberal arts college and even taught at one. It’s been effortless since I have been at Goucher.”
Besides Dr. Belfield, Dr. Torres also was one of the new professors who also has had experience teaching at other small liberal colleges. He expressed that because of the small number of students in the classrooms, he is ecstatic to be able to create relationships with his students and help guide their path in environmental studies and the politics behind the major and minor.
“As a student, I was a student at a big public university, with about 20 to 30 thousand students. For the last two years, including 2024, I have gotten the chance to teach at small private liberal arts colleges,” Dr. Torres said.
Dr. Torres was granted the title of the Jane & Robert E. Meyerhoff Endowed Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at Goucher College. In the fall semester of 2024, he is currently teaching ES 140 (Introduction to Environmental Studies) and ES 410 (Environmental Justice). While teaching at Goucher, he will be conducting his research on his current project, which investigates how to better understand conservative environmental values and how their values shape U.S. environmental politics, policies, and laws.
“I liked looking into the interactions with people’s relationships with the environment,” Dr. Torres stated. “Solving environmental problems requires us to know and understand other groups’ environmental values.”
Dr. Torres’ other expertise includes philosophy, policy studies, and public administration. He completed his Ph.D. in public policy and administration at Boise State University. He said that one of his goals at Goucher was to begin offering classes in environmental politics, policies, and law.
“What I have heard from undergraduate students here at Goucher is that they really care about solving environmental problems. but also found the politics behind it can be frustrating,” Dr. Torres said. “If I can find a way to make politics not boring, but also make sense of how to solve the problems in our environment, then everyone wins.”
Dr. Malomba said that the global education program and the diversity are what caught her eye at Goucher. “I lived in Kenya and studied in Kenya and now I did my PhD in America, so I always enjoyed having students who are global-minded in my classes,” Dr. Malomba said. “They get to gain knowledge that not only applies to America, but I want them to think that they may end up in Japan or Europe.”
Goucher welcomes Dr. Malomba as an assistant professor of Business Management. She is currently teaching various business courses, including BUS 245 (Organizational Behavior) and BUS 335 (Special Topics: International Business).
Dr. Malomba completed her Ph.D. in strategic leadership studies at James Madison University. She has found research interests that are surrounding gender, leadership, organizational behavior, change management, and contemporary Africa’s strategies toward the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Through her research interests, she would like to be more involved in working with first-generation students at Goucher. She was also asked to join the committee for Africana Studies.
Goucher also welcomes the new coordinator of Africana Studies, Dr. Kami Fletcher. She was also named a new associate professor of the History program. During the fall semester, she teaches numerous courses within the History program, including HIS 200 (Introduction to Africana Studies) and HIS 270 (African American History I).
Dr. Fletcher said she wanted to be a historian after getting her master’s in Women’s Studies. She completed her Ph. D. at Morgan State University in History. While teaching at Goucher College, she is currently conducting research for her project on the community-building work of funeral and death care workers in black-owned and -operated funeral homes across the mid-Atlantic and capturing their responses to how COVID-19 impacted their traditions and ritual.
Dr. Fletcher was also fond of the global mindset Goucher encourages. “I like that the study abroad program is a requirement,” Dr. Fletcher said. She concluded that a goal that she has for herself and her students is to “create positive change” and impact around Goucher’s campus.
“One thing I ask my students in my classes is, ‘how can I affect change,’” Dr. Fletcher said. “The goal here is to create change.”
By Shelby Meek, ’25
