AUM Faculty & Staff
Directory
Ben Severance
Professor | College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences
A former lieutenant in the US Army, Ben Severance is a Professor of History at Auburn University Montgomery, a position he has held since joining the faculty there in 2005. He received his Ph.D. in 2002 from the University of Tennessee (Knoxville). His principal areas of research and teaching include the American Civil War, Nineteenth Century America, and U.S. Military History. Among his publications are three books: Tennessee’s Radical Army: The State Guard and Its Role in Reconstruction, 1867-1869 (University of Tennessee Press, 2005), Portraits of Conflict: A Photographic History of Alabama during the Civil War (University of Arkansas Press, 2012), and A War State All Over: Alabama Politics and the Confederate Cause (University of Alabama Press, 2020). Severance is also an avid reader of baseball history.
Jason Shifferd
Senior Lecturer | College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences
Jason Shifferd is a senior lecturer of English who teaches composition and literature. He also tutors writing at the Learning Center. He earned his Bachelor of Arts in English in 2009 and his Master of Liberal Arts in 2014, both from AUM. His thesis, available online and at the AUM library, is entitled The Case for Humor in the Classroom: An Annotated Bibliography, which served as the basis for his 2025 HHMI seminar “Crayons in College? Using Play to Reinforce Learning Goals.” He has published literary essays for Critical Insights, including “Humor in the Autobiographical Writings of Maya Angelou: Maya Meets Mr. Julian” (2016) and “Maxine Peake’s Female Hamlet: A Survey of Responses” (2019). As a graduate research assistant in 2013, he contributed to the article “Who Lives Where: A Comprehensive Population Taxonomy of Cities, Suburbs, Exurbs, and Rural Areas in the United States” (2016) for The Geographical Bulletin. In 2019, he co-led a presentation at CCCC in Pittsburgh entitled “Performing TfT at the Composition Program Level,” and in 2023, he did a live reading of his creative writing at ACETA in Clanton. He writes fantasy and science fiction and intends to publish within the next few years.
Lacey Sloan
Professor | College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences
Dr. Lacey Sloan is a wanderer who received her BSW from the University of Mississippi and her MSSW and Ph.D. in social work from The University of Texas at Austin. Her three intertwining areas of scholarship are sexual rights and gender-based violence; social work education and practice in Islamic contexts; and, environmental justice. Her early practice and scholarship focused on sexual rights, with a specific focus on sexual violence, sex work and sex workers, violence against LGBT people, sexual violence and oppression against people with disabilities, and sexual violence and oppression against other marginalized populations. Her decades working in the anti-sexual violence movement at the local, state and national level included work in rape crisis centers, serving on the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault and National Coalition Against Sexual Assault boards of directors, and serving as the scientific lead for the Department of Justice funded Violence Against Women Act Measuring Effectiveness Initiative. Since 2001, she facilitated the development and/or initial accreditation of three MSW programs (University of Southern Maine, College of Staten Island, Zayed University [United Arab Emirates]), three BSW programs (College of Staten Island; five universities Somalia; Qatar University), and, two diploma and certificate programs in social work (six universities in Somalia; Juba University in South Sudan).
Angie Smith
Assistant Professor of Social Work | College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences
Dr. Angie Smith is a first-generation college graduate whose academic path reflects her dedication to social work and education. She earned an Associate degree in Pre-Social Work, a BSW from the University of Montevallo, and both an MSW and Ph.D. from The University of Alabama. Her doctoral dissertation explored the lived experiences of Black college students following encounters with police violence.
Dr. Smith’s current research focuses on social work education, particularly the importance of evidence-based practice in research for undergraduate students. Her broader interests include vulnerable populations, public and mental health, advocacy, policy, and the impact of police violence.
A passionate educator and mentor, Dr. Smith is committed to helping students reach their goals. She embraces the proverb, “Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime,” and believes mentorship is essential to student success.
Outside of academia, she enjoys science fiction and fantasy films such as Star Wars, Harry Potter, and The Lord of the Rings. She also loves to travel and is known for her dry sense of humor.
Eric Sterling
Distinguished Research Professor, MLA Program Director | College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences
Eric Sterling earned his PhD in English (Renaissance and Eighteenth-Century Literature), with a minor in Drama and Theatre, at Indiana University. He has taught at AUM for 32 years. Dr. Sterling was the AUM English student advisor for 28 years and is Director of the Master of Liberal Arts (MLA) graduate program.
Dr. Sterling has won the following awards:
- AUM Ida Belle Young Endowed Professorship Award
- AUM Distinguished Research Professor Award
- AUM Distinguished Teaching Professor Award
- AUM Distinguished Faculty Service Award
- AUM Alumni Association Professor Award
- AUM Alumni Association Service Award
- College English Association’s Robert E. Hacke Scholar-Teacher Award (national award)
- University of Wyoming’s Amy and Eric Burger Essays in Theatre Award (national)
- Association of College English Teachers of Alabama’s Eugene Current-Garcia Award
- Association of College English Teachers of Alabama’s Calvert Scholarship Award (twice)
- Association of College English Teachers of Alabama’s Woodall Pedagogy Award (five times)
Dr. Sterling has published four books and more than 100 refereed articles in academic journals. His four books are entitled:
- Life in the Ghettos during the Holocaust
- The Movement towards Subversion in Renaissance History
- Play Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman: Dialogue.
- The Seventeenth Century Handbook
Dr. Sterling lives in Alabama with his wife. They have two children and three grandchildren.
Tony Veronese
Assistant Professor - 2D/Digital Arts | College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences
Tony Veronese (Assistant Professor of 2D and Digital Art) holds a Masters of Art and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Dallas in Painting and Drawing. Within the AUM Fine Arts Department, Tony teaches regularly teaches Drawing, 3D Printing, Digital Illustration and Digital Painting. As an exhibiting artist, he has been the recipient of a grant from the MMFA for the community togetherness project, selected as a rising star of Dallas in 2017, and most recently was awarded the Edward L. Robbins prize for his entry in the 2023 exhibition Alabama A-Z.
Courtney A. Waid
Associate Professor and Faculty Athletic Representative
Courtney A. Waid
Associate Professor and Faculty Athletic Representative | College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences
Dr. Courtney A. Waid is currently an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice and serves as the NCAA Faculty Athletic Representative (FAR) at Auburn University at Montgomery (AUM). She holds a Ph.D. in criminology and criminal justice from the Florida State University (2010). She has developed and taught courses in in the areas of corrections, juvenile delinquency and justice, victimology, and criminological theory. Her recent research appears in the International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice.
Samuel Wallace
Distinguished Senior Lecturer | College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences
Samuel Wallace has a B.A. in Communication from Lipscomb University and an M.F.A. in Theatre Arts from The University of Louisville. Before arriving at Auburn University at Montgomery, he was a Professor of Theatre at Faulkner University, and an Instructor of Speech and Theatre at Lipscomb University. He has acted in and/or directed shows professionally for theatres in Tennessee, Kentucky, Texas, and Alabama. Mr. Wallace began teaching at AUM in 2008, was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2018, and was awarded the Distinguished Lecturer Award for Excellence in Teaching for 2018-2019. In the River Region, he has acted in and/or directed shows for Theatre AUM, Faulkner University Dinner Theatre, Millbrook Community Players, Prattville’s Way Off Broadway Theatre, Wetumpka Depot Players, and the Pike Road Theatre Company.
Wyatt Wells
Professor | College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences
Wyatt Wells, a native of Nashville, Tennessee, graduated from Vanderbilt University with a BA in 1986. Six years later, in 1992, he earned a Ph.D. in American History from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. After a year as an instructor at Chapel Hill, he took a position as an assistant editor at the Andrew Jackson Papers at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He worked there three years, leaving in 1996 to be the Newcomen fellow in Business History at the Harvard Business School. The next year, he moved to Montgomery to teach at AUM. Wells has been here ever since, although in the 2001-2002 academic year he did serve as a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Hong Kong.
Wells’s research has focused on the intersection of government and economics and how the issues involved often spill across national borders. He has published five books and numerous articles on subjects such as the policies of the Federal Reserve during the economically turbulent 1970s, the effort of the United States to impose its ideas about antitrust on the rest of the world during and immediately after World War II, the financial crisis that reshaped Wall Street in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Eisenhower administration’s policies towards public (electric) power, and the bitter debate in the United States in the 1890s over whether to base the currency on gold or silver. He has also produced broader studies on the history and character of capitalism and the performance of the U.S. economy in the decades after World War II. Wells has drawn on this expertise to create upper-level history classes at AUM such as “The World since 1945” and “The History of Money.”
Wyatt Wells is married and has three sons and a dog. In his spare time, he writes fiction.
Val Winkelman
Professor | College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences
Val Winkelman is an Auburn University at Montgomery Distinguished Research Professor and received the Alumni Association Award for outstanding service. She is one of the campus advisors for Omicron Delta Kappa and a member of Alpha Alpha Alpha Honor Society for First Gen students. She is an associate member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society and is a Past Fellow of the International Council of Fine Arts Deans. She has been a Distinguished Guest for the Texas Educational Theatre Association. She is one of the Costume Designers for the Alabama Shakespeare Festival and has been serving as the Associate Artistic Director, Production Manager, and one of the Costume Designers for over 35 seasons at the Texas Shakespeare Festival. Val is the American College Theatre Festival National Co-Chair and former National Chair for Design, Technology and Management. She has been awarded the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival Gold Medallion. She received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Texas at Austin and named a Distinguished Alumna of the University of North Texas where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree.
Advising for the following
- All students majoring in Communication with a Theatre concentration
