News Release
September 2000

Keim named Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty

(Bethlehem, Pennsylvania)—Moravian College recently named Curtis A. Keim, Ph.D., the vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty. Keim has been a professor of history and political science at Moravian College for over 20 years. He was selected by College president, Ervin J. Rokke at the recommendation of the Academic Personnel Committee, the Planning and Budget Committee, and the Faculty Executive Committee.

Keim has taught African history, politics, and culture at Moravian College since 1980. He received the College’s Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching in 1983. Keim has chaired the Department of History and has served on numerous committees, most recently as chair of the Planning and Budget Committee. He is a member and past coordinator of the Africana Studies Consortium of the Lehigh Valley.

Keim completed his undergraduate studies at Manchester College in Indiana and received his Ph.D. from Indiana University. An historian of Africa, Keim has lived and traveled in Africa numerous times over the last thirty years. He has been the recipient of Social Science Research Council and Fulbright-Hays fellowships for research in Africa as well as Foreign Language and Area Studies fellowships for study of Swahili and Lingala. He completed post-graduate study in anthropology under a Mellon Foundation grant. In 1990 Keim collaborated with Enid Schildkrout, the Africa curator of the American Museum of Natural History, to create an exhibition of the art and material culture of the Mangbetu people of Congo (formerly Zaire) and their neighbors. The exhibition was funded by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and traveled from New York to the Smithsonian Institution and museums in Denver, Cincinnati, and Atlanta.

Keim has produced numerous articles and three books: African Reflections: The Art of Northeast Zaire (1990), The Scramble for Art in Central Africa (1998), and Mistaking Africa: Curiosities and Inventions of the American Mind (1999). His first book, co-authored with Enid Schildkrout, won the Choice Outstanding Academic Book Award and the Arnold Reuben award, given triennially by the Arts Council of the African Studies in recognition of original scholarship and excellence in visual presentation. His most recent book examines stereotypes about Africa and their effect on American interactions with Africa.

Keim selected Bettie M. Smolansky, Ph.D., professor of sociology, to fill the position of dean for academic affairs. Smolansky will be dean for one year, during which time the duties of the position will be reconfigured.

Smolansky has been a member of the College faculty for her entire career, having joined the Sociology Department staff in 1964. Through the years, she has served the College in a number of capacities. From 1980-1982, she was assistant dean of the College. She has also served two separate terms on the College Board of Trustees, one in the late 1970s and the other in the 1990s. She chaired the Sociology Department from 1991-92 through 1997-98 and acted as interim dean of the faculty in 1998-99.

Smolansky won the College’s Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching in 1978 and was the co-recipient (with Dr. Oles Smolansky of Lehigh University) of the 1992 Marshall Shulman Prize of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies for their jointly-authored volume, The USSR and Iraq: The Soviet Quest for Influence. Their co-edited anthology, The Lost Equilibrium: International Relations in the Post-Soviet World is in press and should appear later this year.

Upon the completion of Smolansky’s term, Carol A.Traupman-Carr, Ph.D., will assume the position of dean for academic affairs. Traupman-Carr is a 1986 graduate of Moravian College. She received a B.A. in Social Science Education and a B.Mus. in Music Education and Performance, graduating summa cum laude, with honors in Music. As a student, she was a Comenius Scholar, and was actively involved in numerous musical ensembles and was a member of Omicron Delta Kappa. She received her masters and doctorate in Musicology, with a minor in music theory from Cornell University.

Traupman-Carr teaches courses in music history, music theory, and an interdisciplinary course on music, literature, and film. She currently serves as faculty adviser to upper-class music majors, as well as non-traditional and transfer students in music. She currently serves as chair of the Music Department and chairs both the Academic Program Committee and Moravian College Arts & Lectures Committee. Other past committee service included the Curriculum Transition Committee, the College Assessment Committee, Strategic Planning Committee and the Commission on the Future (Learning Environment Task Force).

Traupman-Carr serves as choral director at St. Ann’s Roman Catholic Church in Emmaus. She is also a member of the advisory board for the Allentown Arts Academy, and writes the "Bach 101" educational website for the Bach Choir of Bethlehem.

Moravian College is a private, coeducational, selective liberal arts college located in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Tracing its founding to 1742, it is recognized as America's sixth-oldest college. Visit the Web site at www.moravian.edu.