Meet the Writers and Artists of New England College!

New England College’s established programs in writing and the visual arts feature some of the most accomplished faculty in their fields.

New England College’s Master of Fine Arts program in Poetry celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. The members of the program’s acclaimed faculty have received Pulitzer Prizes and National Book Awards. Faculty from our undergraduate writing program are frequently published and have received numerous awards including multiple Pushcart nominations and awards. NEC’s visual artists have been featured in many regional, national, and international exhibitions, and the regionally acclaimed New England College Art Gallery frequently exhibits work by members of the NEC community.

This list features a select group of New England College faculty members who represent the College’s writing and visual arts programs.

Sylva Boyadjian-Haddad
Professor of English and Comparative Literature
Chair of the Art, Literature, Theatre and Communication Studies
Sylva Boyadjian-Haddad, is a poet, writer, translator and the co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Entelechy International/A Journal of Contemporary Ideas. Her work has been published in several literary journals such as The Worcester Review, Facets, Tygerburning and an anthology.  Her thematically related collection of poems, Salt, was released in 2011 by Finishing Line Press. Salt was awarded Honorable Mention in 2010 New Women’s Voices Series. Sylva was nominated several times for a Pushcart Prize. She has been the featured Poet Laureate on the NH Poet Laureate’s website twice. Sylva teaches Comparative Mythology, Existential Literature, Modes of Literary Criticism, and The Epic among other selected courses. In addition, Sylva team-teaches a yearlong sequence Modernism and Post-Modernism with Professor Kevin Harvey.

Martha Andrews Donovan
Professor of Writing
Martha’s poetry chapbook Dress Her in Silk (Finishing Line Press, 2009) received the Tacenda Literary Award/Best Book, 2009 from BleakHouse Publishing, and was nominated by the editor of Finishing Line Press, for a 2010 PEN New England Literary Award. Martha’s fall 2011 sabbatical was spent working on a mixed-genre memoir titled Dangerous Archaeology: A Daughter’s Search for her Mother (and Others) – inspired by her research into her mother’s unusual childhood in rural South India as the daughter and granddaughter of foreign missionaries. She has been working in collaboration with NEC alumna Autumn Monsees (Class of 2011) to photograph artifacts that will become part of the project. Professor Donovan’s poem “Ghosts” was published in the anthology Shadow and Light: An Anthology of Memory. She was invited by Dr. Robert Johnson, a professor at American University, to review Shirin Karimi’s poetry collection Enclosures (BleakHouse Publishing 2011). Professor Donovan and Professor Maura MacNeil presented a Mind Stretch Workshop “Texture and Text” at the A Room of Her Own Retreat “A Dream of Our Own: Women Writing New, Women Writing True” in August of 2011.

Darryl Furtkamp
Assistant Professor of Art and Director, New England College Gallery
Darryl Furtkamp received his MFA from the University of Idaho and teaches an impressive range of courses in the art program including drawing, two-dimensional design, painting, printmaking, sculpture, and collage and assemblage.  In addition, as Gallery Director, he teaches courses in professional practice and the senior exhibition.  He works directly with students in the gallery to curate, design, and install exhibitions by national and international artists, and exhibits by NEC faculty and students.  Darryl supervises internships at the NEC Gallery and supports students in internships with regional and national galleries and museums.   Darryl’s own works are fictional narratives combining elements of collage with new painting and drawing, and displayed in handcrafted or found object frames.  These works recall Byzantine icons and early Renaissance altarpieces.  Additionally, Darryl serves as a Councilor for the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts.

Farid Haddad
Professor of Art, 2008 Robert A. Kilgore Faculty Award
Farid Haddad earned his B.A. from the American University of Beirut and his M.F.A. from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. His early works dealt with color field painting, and in the early eighties, he turned to an art based on experimental abstraction. He is a former Fulbright-Hays Scholar (1972) and a recipient of two Individual Artist Grants from the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts (1983 and 1984). He has taught painting and drawing at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee (1978-1979), and since 1979, he has been on the faculty of the Department of Art and Art History at New England College in Henniker, New Hampshire, where he teaches two- and three-dimensional design, seminars in contemporary art, and courses in media arts. He has had twenty one-person exhibitions and participated in more than fifty group shows in Europe, the Middle East, and North America. He lives and maintains his studio in Concord, New Hampshire.

Kevin Harvey
Professor of English and Creative Writing, 2007 Robert A. Kilgore Faculty Award
Kevin Harvey received his MFA from Norwich University and his work has appeared in Facets, 5-Trope, and Entelechy International/A Journal of Contemporary Ideas. His play, The French Impressionist Wrestler, won the Massachusetts Cultural Council Award for 2004, and an earlier play, Albert, published in Facets, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.  Kevin teaches the foundation courses in Creative Writing as well as the more advance courses such as the Survey of American Literature and The Beat Generation. He team-teaches Modernism and Post-Modernism with Professor Boyadjian-Haddad.

William Homestead
Lecturer in Communication
William Homestead explores the intersections between Communication Studies and Environmental Studies and the integration of different modes of communication, including rational, mythic, aesthetic, and spiritual communication, as an ethical response to our current age of ecocrisis. He teaches journalism, media, and sport communication courses.  William is the author of The Path of My Soul: Journey to the Center of Self (Denver: Acropolis Books, 1999), and is currently working on three books: An Ecology of Communication: Response and Responsibility in an Age of Ecocrisis, Not Till We Are Lost: Reflections on Education, Communication, and Spiritual Transformation, and A Birth Year: Poems. He served as the Guest Editor of the Ometeca Journal's Special Edition on “Educating for Ecological Sustainability” (Ometeca 14/15, 2010), and is the advisor for the college newspaper, The NewEnglander. William has taught at Purdue University, Rutgers University, and the University of Montana.

Maura MacNeil
Professor of Writing
Maura MacNeil’s poetry was recently published in Earth’s Daughters. Her poetry was also featured in the anthology Shadow and Light: An Anthology of Memory. Maura served as one of the poetry editors for the anthology that was published by the Monadnock Writers’ Group. Her poems “How We Die in This Family” and “Paper Stars” were two out of the four top winning poems in the February 2011 Poetry Society of New Hampshire National Poetry Competition. She is an alumna of New England College and received her MFA from Vermont College. Maura is the co-founder and editor of Entelechy International: A Journal of Contemporary Ideas. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for her poem, “What We Know.” She teaches poetry workshops.

Inez McDermott
Associate Professor of Art History, 2012 Robert A. Kilgore Faculty Award
Inez McDermott teaches a wide selection of art history courses and believes in engaging students with the arts whenever and wherever possible.  Each January she takes a group of students, faculty, alumni and their family and friends to destinations in Europe to experience what many have explored in the classroom.  In addition, field trips to museums around New England are an expected part of her course.   Students interested in exploring careers in Art History or Museum Studies work with Inez to arrange internships at such venues as the New England College Gallery, the Currier Museum, the New Hampshire Historical Society, and various other galleries and cultural institutions.  Inez also includes students in her work curating art and history exhibitions throughout New England, including recent shows highlighting contemporary New England Furniture, the Supreme Court and New Hampshire, and the history of the Concord (NH) YMCA. 

Neil Rennie
Assistant Professor of Art
Neil Rennie teaches courses in studio photography and maintains and the College’s Mac Labs with state-of-the-art software.  Neil’s years of teaching and working in Boston have provided students with many opportunities to interact with professional photographers.  In addition, Neil and his students photograph numerous campus events and their work is indispensible to New England College’s Theatre and Athletics  Departments.  Neil’s work has been exhibited at New England College Gallery as well as at various venues in Boston.

Marguerite Walsh
Professor of Art
Marguerite Walsh teaches painting and drawing at New England College and has taught similar courses at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of New Hampshire.  She has exhibited her oil paintings in galleries in New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Boston. Her work has received recognition from various arts organizations including the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts. Walsh’s painting investigates observations in nature, landscape themes, and the human subject. She works from her studio in Manchester, New Hampshire.

Mark Watman
Associate Professor of Writing and Director of the MA in Professional Writing
Mark Watman is currently researching and writing a history of New England College from its founding in 1946 until the present day. Mark’s poems have been published in several journals including Entelechy International. He is writing a collaborative series of poems with Professor Andrew Morgan.  Mark teaches creative writing courses in poetry to undergraduates, as well as a number of courses in the master’s degree program in Professional Writing.  He is an alumnus of New England College and received his MFA from Bennington College.