Southwestern College
IMPORTANT SOUTHWESTERN COLLEGE ANNOUNCEMENT!
Dear Friends & Colleagues,
We are honored and excited to announce that Dr. Ann Filemyr has accepted a position as the Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean of Southwestern College!
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Ann most recently served as the Dean and Chief Academic Officer at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Prior to that, she held the position of Vice President and Dean of Faculty at storied Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio.
Dr. Filemyr received her Bachelor of Philosophy in the Creative & Performing Arts from Thomas Jefferson College of Grand Valley, Michigan, in 1979 and her Master of Arts in English (emphasis Poetry), from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 1984. Her doctorate is in Communications and Environmental Studies from the Union Institute & University in Ohio.
She served for two decades, from 1979-1999, as a helper (apprentice or oshkibewis) to the late Keewayinoquay (Kee) Peschel. As part of her duties, Ann assisted with traditional healings, teachings, and life ceremonies. She also served as Kee’s Graduate Teaching and Research Assistant at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Kee was a culture-bearer, medicine woman, and ethnobotanist grounded in the philosophical traditions of the Great Lakes Anishinaabeg (Ojibwe). Ann carries on this legacy in the way she lives her life and by teaching and leading ceremony in the ways in which she was taught by Kee.
Ann is also a poet and a writer. Her two recent books of poetry include Love Enough (Red Mountain Press, 2014) and The Healer’s Diary (Sunstone Press, 2012). She won an Honorable Mention for the poem “Love Enough” in the Robinson Jeffers 2012 Tor House Award. She contributed a chapter on two traditional sacred female figures of the Anishinaabeg (Ojibwe/Chippewa), entitled, “Nokomis Tibik Giizis and Mindemoya: Grandmother Moon and Old Woman of the Mists,” in the anthology Goddesses in World Culture (Praeger 2011), and helped edit White Shell Water Place (Sunstone 2012), an anthology presenting Native American perspectives on Santa Fe’s 400th anniversary.
Ann has been teaching Consciousness courses at Southwestern for the past two years. Her Light Figure presentation can be viewed on our website (look on the Videos/Light Figure Presentations page.) She has also served as a Board member on the SWC Board of Trustees since 2009 and has assisted the College with its re-accreditation process. Her dedication and commitment to the school will continue to grow when she assumes her new position with us on August 1. I am sure you will join me in welcoming Dr. Ann Filemyr to Southwestern College!
Warmly, and in anticipation of great things ahead,
Jim See More
About the Moderator
Jim Nolan has been the President of Southwestern College since 2006. He holds a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology, and has a private practice in Santa Fe. He went to graduate school in Irish and English literature, too, and reads a lot of books, takes a lot of photos and plays guitar. Sort of. His best friend of all times, a Wire Haired Fox Terrier named Barney, recently passed into non-physical. Barney was a true guru. Jim is the opposite of a guru, whatever that is called. He doesn't know anything, and he knows that. It seems to work out...
