James R.C. Adams, department chair, has been a member of the Manchester College faculty for more than 40 years. In 2002, he was honored nationwide as the U.S. Professor of the Year for baccalaureate colleges, and he has received numerous awards for art restoration.
Adams has degrees from George Washington University (A.A. and B.A.) and the Instituto Allende, affiliated with the University of Guanajuato, Mexico (M.F.A.). He has studied at the Corcoran Art School in Washington, and the Ruskin Art School, Oxford University, and has done graduate work at the University of Barcelona.
He has exhibited in England, the U.S., and Mexico. He taught a year at a school in Germany, and three years at the University of Barcelona, in Spain, and was a Faculty Fellow of the Indiana Campus Compact.
Professor
Adams specializes in drawing and painting, photography, video, and
general humanities classes.
A Nigerian-American, Ejenobo Ruth Oke was born in Tallahassee, Fla., but grew up in her father’s country. Her family returned to the United States in 1987. She attended high school at John Glenn H.S., in Walkerton, Ind., where she first began to take a serious interest in art.
She attended Manchester College, where she studied painting, drawing, sculpture and fiber investigation. Oke graduated Summa cum Laude, in 1997, with a Bachelor of Art degree. In 1999, Oke continued her education by pursuing a graduate degree in the Visual Studies program at Old Dominion University, in Norfolk, Va. She graduated in 2001, with a Master of Fine Arts. Her thesis work entitled The Blue Square and the Bed focused her investigation on the interactions between the individual and the quilt. The Blue Square is a series of six handmade batik quilts that explore the life activities on and around the bed.
In 2001, Oke began her teaching career in the public school system of Allen, Texas. “I really love this age group,” says Oke of her 7th and 8th grade students. “They are raw and eager, and their enthusiasm for life is contagious.” She spent five years teaching at Ford Middle School, and was named Teacher of the Year in 2003.
In August 2006, she returned to Manchester as an art instructor. Currently, she teaches Basic Design, Elementary Art Education Techniques, Outdoor Sketching & Painting, 3-D Construction, Arts & Crafts, Fabric Design, Graphic Design and a First Year Colloquium.
Thelma Rohrer teaches various courses in the Art Department and the Humanities Division. She is a specialist in ceramics and weaving, though her principal subject is art history. She is finishing her doctoral dissertation in Art History for Ohio State University. She graduated from Manchester College "With Distinction," has a master's degree from Michigan State University, and has studied at Notre Dame and the University of Michigan.
A specialist in American art, she has contributed scholarly articles to several encyclopedias, including the Lexikon der Düsseldorfer Malerschule, The Ohio Artists Project, and the American National Biography, published by the Oxford University Press.
She was named "Winterthur Fellow, Scholar-in-Residence" in 1998, "Outstanding Young Woman of America," national award, 1997, "Who' s Who in American Universities and Colleges," 1984, and has received many other awards for excellence in teaching.
Rohrer has had a life-long interest in other cultures, and has traveled widely. Before entering college, she spent a year in Switzerland as an American Field Service exchange student. Once in college, she studied at Philipps Universität in Marburg, Germany. She has been leader or co-leader of study trips to England, Spain, Morocco, Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras, and recently participated in a conference for study-abroad directors in Ecuador.
She
has experience in judging art as curatorial assistant for the Kresge
Art Museum at Michigan State University, and was curator and author
of "Labor and Leisure: Images of Rural America in Prints of
the 1930s and 1940s" exhibition at the Columbus Museum of Art,
in Ohio.
