The Manchester area Colleges and Universities have a number of recognized professors teaching in our local community. Below is a brief listing of a few of them. We welcome you to contact each College or University to learn more!
Nanette Thrush
Chester College
Dr. Nanette Thrush joined the faculty of Chester College in 2005 as an Assistant Professor of Art History. She was previously a Visiting Instructor of Art History at Whitman College, in the state of Washington, teaching such courses as Women, Femininity and Feminism in Art; Medieval Art History; and Nineteenth-Century European Art.
Additionally, she is an Academic Dean for summer programs at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth.
Dr. Thrush holds a B.A. with honors from Texas Christian University and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Indiana University in Art History. She has recently published essays on Medieval Revival costumes as they were used by women in the nineteenth century, and on ekphrasis in nineteenth-century novels.
She is also at work on a manuscript proposal entitled, Caveat Emptor: History for Sale.
Mike Russell
Granite State College
Mike Russell received his B.A. degree in Philosophy from DePauw University and his M.A. and Ph.D degrees from the University of Illinois. He also received a Master of International Management degree from the Garvin Graduate School of Internatioal Management.
His work experience includes 30 years of college teaching at the State University of New York, Geneseo, Nasson College, and the College for Lifelong Learning (Granite State College). He has also been a bank commercial loan officer, a McDonald's Corporation manager, an official with the U.S. Small Business Administration, and a management consultant with the New Hampshire Small Business Development Center.
Prior to his retirement in 2004, he served as Director of Academic Program Development at the College for Lifelong Learning. He has taught management courses at the College for Lifelong Learning (Granite State College) for twenty-two years. He was awarded the CLL Distinguished Faculty Award in 1988.
Scott Massey
Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences
Scott Massey brings 15 years of physician assistant education experience to MCPHS, with a strong background in higher education from Kettering College in Ohio.
Prior to assuming his position as Chair of the Physician Assistant Studies program at MCPHS–Manchester, N.H., Dr. Massey held positions as Academic Coordinator, Associate Director, and Department Chair, and most recently as Director of Research and Learning Officer for Kettering College’s faculty-wide development programs.
Focusing his scholarship on learner-centered education, Dr. Massey has made numerous presentations at national conferences on topics including learning styles, generational effects on learning, cooperative learning in college science, and implementation of active learning methods in clinical medicine. He has practiced as a physician assistant in rural family practice, urban emergency medicine, university health centers, and long term care facilities. In addition, Dr. Massey has provided professional service as a site visitor for the Accreditation Review Commission on Education for the Physician Assistant (ARC-PA), and item writer for the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants (NCCPA).
On numerous occasions between 1989 and 2000, Dr. Massey volunteered as a PA for short mission trips in remote areas of the Republic of Haiti. Out of a desire to do further service in his field, he returned to the island to resuscitate the struggling Physician Extenders program at Albert Schweitzer Hospital. From 2000-2002, Dr. Massey worked to overhaul the program’s curriculum and provide oversight of the teaching.
Dr. Massey completed his physician assistant training at Kettering College in 1987. He earned a BS in Liberal Arts from SUNY Albany, an MS in Counseling Psychology from University of Dayton, and a PhD in Leadership from the School of Education at Andrews University. His doctoral dissertation examined the effects of cooperative learning versus traditional lecture on cognitive achievement, critical thinking, and attitude toward learning in teams in a physician assistant program.
As department chair for the Physician Assistant Studies program in Manchester, N.H., Dr. Massey brings a strong background of academic and clinical experience, and will provide leadership to implement learner-centered methods in the Physician Assistant curriculum.
Patrick McCay
New Hampshire Institute of Art
Patrick McCay joined the New Hampshire Institute of Art in 2004 as the Academic Dean. Mr. McCay completed undergraduate and graduate studies in Painting at the Glasgow School of Art in Scotland and holds a MFA from the University of Notre Dame. He is the recipient of numerous grants and awards and his national and international exhibition record includes: London's Royal Academy, The Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, The Edinburgh International Festival, The Edinburgh Royal Academy, The London Institute, "Arthaus 11" Syndey College of Fine Arts, Australia and the Irish College for the Humanities.
An active visiting artist and lecturer his academic experiences have included, Department Head at the American School of London; Chair of Fine Arts Department at the College for Creative Studies, Michigan; University of Notre Dame; School of Visual Arts, Savannah; and currently the Academic Dean at the New Hampshire Institute of Art. Mr. McCay also teaches advanced painting at the New Hampshire Institute of Art. He was also a visiting artist or artist in residence at The London Institute, England; The Sydney College of Fine Arts, Australia; The University of Notre Dame; Belmont University; Randolph Macon University; and Armstrong Atlantic University.
His work is in numerous corporate and private collections and he is presently represented by Gallery Sklo, Atlanta; Steinway Gallery, North Carolina; Chroma Gallery, Savannah; and 2O North Gallery in Toledo. Mr. McCay holds memberships in various national professional associations which include: International Advisory Board : Irish College for the Humanities; Royal Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts; Artists Helping Artists; College Art Association of America; and the Chicago Artists Coalition.
Paul Bellerive
Southern New Hampshire University
Not everyone approaches Paul Bellerive's writing classes at SNHU's Manchester Location with enthusiasm.
"It's not at all unusual for me to hear, 'I've always hated writing'," says Bellerive, the published author of a poetry collection and a number of short stories. "Many Continuing Education students have had not-so-great experiences learning to write in high school or even in college. So they get the idea that they just can't do it."
Bellerive uses a learn-by-doing approach to help students get past their fears.
"I can talk all day about techniques and rules, but until you sit down to write, you're not making any progress," he says. "My students do a lot of writing. I also pay close attention to each student's needs."
Bellerive says his students generally reach the point where they can express themselves well—and with "a minimum of trepidation." Of course, some go further. One especially apprehensive student ended up in law school, winning accolades for his writing.
"He came in saying he hated to write, but he ended up being one of the best writers I've ever had," Bellerive recalls. "He had talent; it was just a matter of giving him a chance to use it."
Then there's the poetry writing group, formed 12 years ago at an electrical engineering company and still going strong.
"Everyone in the group is an engineer or a computer scientist," Bellerive says. "One of the members, a Ph.D. in computer programming, got so involved in the group that she earned an M.F.A. in writing and got some of her work published. Others are making huge strides, too."
John Sparrow
University of New Hampshire
"Imagine what the goalie has to do in terms of depth perception, perceived motion, and visual cues."
John Sparrow has two great passions: teaching psychology and college hockey. "When I began undergraduate school [at SUNY Oswego], I had no idea of what I'd be 'when I grew up,'" Sparrow reminisces, "and then I took an introductory psychology course, and I was hooked."
His interest in experimental psychology led him to graduate study in the psychology program at UNH, which has been nationally recognized for its college teaching program. "What I really appreciated about UNH was that the program focused on the teaching of psychology and on research, instead of having a clinical perspective," explains Sparrow. "In this program, you really learn how to be an effective teacher."
At UNH, Sparrow also learned what it meant to be a true college hockey fanatic, "I played hockey as a kid and grew up watching the NHL, but college hockey is different-exciting, fast, and clean," he enthuses. "Plus, UNH has a first-rate team that's really terrific to watch."
During his years as a graduate student, Sparrow began his research in visual perception and "psychophysics," the quantitative relationships between physical stimuli and the observer's experience.
"We can talk about the physical aspects of vision," Sparrow explains, "what the lens and rods and cones are doing in the eye, but that can only tell us about the biology and physiology of vision. It doesn't explain how the brain perceives what we see-color or motion-for example. The answers to questions about perception represent the psychology of vision."
After earning his doctorate, Sparrow taught at SUNY Geneseo. But his connection to UNH and southern New Hampshire remained a powerful one, and five years later he accepted a position at UNH Manchester.
For 13 years, Sparrow, an associate professor, has honed his teaching approach at the urban Manchester campus, where he credits his students for being especially "focused and engaged." UNH Manchester has students of all ages and backgrounds who make up a very nontraditional group of undergraduates. They feel free to question and challenge the information presented, so classes become dialogues rather than lectures," he says, "This level of interaction makes the classroom experience very exciting for me, and I am able to raise the bar for the students I teach."
With teaching evaluations that are nearly a perfect five (as well as a previous Teaching Excellence Award in 1996), Sparrow's students clearly return his compliment. They recognize his teaching abilities, including "his gift for making complex topics understandable" and the way in which he challenges his students to "push beyond where [they thought they] could go."
Sparrow's students, many of whom have interests in clinical and counseling psychology, often gain an important new perspective of the field from his classes. "One of my missions is to remind students that the roots of our discipline are in experimental psychology," Sparrow says. "Psychology didn't begin with questions about schizophrenia or the theories of Freud; it actually grew from the work of philosophers and the need for empirical, scientific research on the nature of the mind, perception and sensory processing, cognition, and learning and behavior."
This is where Sparrow's work meets his passion for college hockey. In presentations about his research on motion and depth perception, he has been known to incorporate Hockey East video clips. "Think about the nature of motion perception in hockey; players and the puck are moving virtually all the time. Imagine what the goalie has to do in terms of depth perception, perceived motion, and visual cues," Sparrow says. "In hockey, as in any sport, athletic ability is clearly required, but there is also a whole lot of psychology as well."
