Staff Report
Hancock College has welcomed 10 new full-time faculty members to campus this fall to teach in STEM areas, transfer English, and career education programs.
“I can’t wait to communicate to the students at Hancock how wonderful physics is!” said Brian Youngblood, one of the new faculty members who most recently lectured at UCSB. “It’s an exciting opportunity.”
The other new faculty members are Kathy Beckelhymer in Noncredit Basic Skills; Bethany Conner, Licensed Vocational Nursing; Katherine Garcia, Noncredit Vocational Education; Wendy Hadley, Biology; Richard Jacoby, Photography; Ron Lovell, Culinary Arts; Megan McComas, Registered Nursing; Alejandro Omidsalar, English; and Susan Roehl, Emergency Medical Services.
The number of faculty members has increased by 23 since the recession of 2008, bringing the total faculty count to 161. Including retiree replacements, the college has brought on 60 new faculty members in the past five years, a spokesman said.
“The state Board of Governors has set a goal to increase faculty diversity and you can see that happening here at Hancock. Our intentional outreach effort is paying dividends in recruiting talented, new faculty members to the Central Coast, said Hancock Superintendent-President Kevin G. Walthers.
Walthers also added that with the addition of more counseling faculty in recent years, the college has been able to increase its counselor-to-student ratio from 997 to 557 students per counselor.
