Tenure and promotions announced for four Centre faculty members
Centre College is pleased to announce that four members of the faculty were granted tenure and promotion to associate professor at the February 2026 meeting of the Centre College Board of Trustees.
Kiyona Brewster joined the Centre College faculty as an Assistant Professor of Sociology in 2017. Her teaching and research interests include race and ethnicity, gender, qualitative methods, family studies, and religion. Brewster’s ongoing research examines how gender and familial roles are defined and enacted within predominantly African American Protestant and Evangelical communities of faith. She previously held teaching appointments at Northwestern University, DePaul University and Triton College in Illinois. Brewster earned her bachelor’s degree at Bennett College for Women and master’s degrees at the University of Connecticut and Northwestern University. She earned her doctorate and a certificate in gender and sexuality studies at Northwestern University.
Michelle Burdine joined Centre College in 2021 and serves as an Assistant Professor of Art. She is a photographic artist whose work expands to mixed media installations and examines how large-scale systems and social conventions — such as pronatalism, healthcare, taxation, and family — inscribe themselves on individual bodies and lives while shaping structures of care and belonging. Burdine has led photography and new media programs at the post-secondary level since 2007, including appointments with Murray State University, The Ohio State University and The Ohio Institute of Photography. Burdine earned her bachelor’s degree at Antioch University Midwest and earned master’s degrees at The Ohio State University and Wright State University.
Mei Li Inouye joined the faculty of Centre College in 2020 and serves as an Assistant Professor of Chinese. Her research interests include transnational exchange, gender politics, performance, memory, and transmedia studies in modern Chinese literature, theater, and visual culture. She has extensively studied the life and work of Chinese revolutionary, actress and political figure Jiang Qing. Inouye’s scholarship has been supported by a CLIR-Mellon Fellowship and a Stanford Humanities Center Geballe Dissertation Prize Fellowship. She earned her master’s degree at Hollins University and her doctorate at Stanford University.
Jeff Shenton joined Centre’s faculty in 2019 as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology. His research interests include human/landscape/ecology interrelationships, environmentalism, cultural and conceptual change, environmental education, and Indigenous studies. He has done long-term field work in both Chiapas, Mexico and Napo Province, Ecuador. At Centre, Shenton has developed an interest in the potential for teaching partnerships between undergraduates and regional community members to promote collective action on behalf of historical underrepresentation and environmental recovery. He earned his bachelor’s degree at the University of Pennsylvania, and his master’s and doctorate degrees at Vanderbilt University.
