Liesl Allingham
Liesl Allingham is Associate Professor and Chair of German and German Studies and affiliate of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of the South. Her research centers on gender and sexuality in the 18th century. In addition to teaching German-language, literature and culture courses, she offers German Queer Cinema and Borders, Margins, and Identities in German Culture in English. Allingham also serves on the working group for the Roberson Project on Slavery, Race and Reconciliation.
Matt Brown
Matt Brown has been a member of the Sewanee Family since the summer of 2019 as the Director of Student Accessibility Services. He has an extensive history of diversity training and leadership including commitments to diversity committees, the leadership of diversity-focused groups on 4-year public college campuses, professional roles to help support members of diverse populations, and an educator for the past 5 years teaching diversity courses to undergraduate students. Matt has a deep knowledge of his own diversity identity and helps others discover theirs through education opportunities and open conversations. Matt is thrilled to continue his work with education on diverse topics at the University of the South.
Chris Champion
Chris is a Human Resources professional serving as the Benefits Administrator at the University of the South, where he has been for two years. He enjoys engaging with both colleagues and students through events and programs sponsored by the University’s Dialogue Across Difference program as well as the student mentorship program, Sewanee Connect, which seeks to help students find connectedness through mentoring, peer networking, support services, and activities.
Sylvia Gray
Dr. Sylvia Gray has served in the arena of higher education for over a decade. Gray’s experience includes taking on positions such as: Director of operations for an all girls non-profit agency, a prior athletic trainer in sports medicine for several male dominated sports, a director of university housing for students, a director of university housing for multicultural families, a senior conduct hearing officer, a coordinator of a women’s center, a coordinator of multicultural affairs, a leadership facilitator, a greek life/risk management advisor and an adjunct professor of Higher Education Administration. She now serves as the Title IX Coordinator at The University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. Sylvia’s experience is rooted in educating, training, storytelling, and engaging with a variety of populations. Sylvia’s role as Sewanee’s Title IX Coordinator includes overseeing compliance efforts and advising the executive offices, faculty, staff, students, clergy, and the broader Sewanee community on issues as it pertains to Title IX.
Cassie Meyer
Cassie Meyer is the Director of Dialogue Across Difference Programs in the Office of Civic Engagement at Sewanee: The University of the South. At Sewanee, her work focuses on building the capacity of students, faculty, and staff for dialogue in curricular and co-curricular spaces, as well as campus-wide programming on dialogue, diversity and inclusion, and democratic engagement. Prior to her work at Sewanee, Cassie worked for over a decade on diversity, dialogue, and interfaith engagement in higher education in various roles at Interfaith Youth Core.
Tanya Ingvoldstad Otero
Tanya Ingvoldstad Otero is currently a food service worker at Sewanee. She has held a variety of positions including creative chef at a unique pay-what-you-can nonprofit cafe, art studio and gallery business owner, literacy organizer in a large, diverse, urban school district, camp director and teacher. She has been active in many social justice initiatives since her youth and was a member of the first Anti-racism Team of the Greater Milwaukee Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. Tanya continues to learn and grow as she actively works to become more anti-racist.
Travis Rundle
Travis is the head football coach at Sewanee. Recently, he co-founded Your Voice Counts, a group of coaches who work with other coaches around the country on implementing Civic Leadership ideas within their teams and communities. Travis holds a Master’s degree in Education Leadership from The Pennsylvania State University.
Faith Vaughn
Faith is the current Assistant Director for Admission at Sewanee: University of the South. Her specific tasks are to coordinate intercultural recruitment and assist in diversity, equity, and inclusion projects. A native of Marion County, she graduated with her undergraduate degree in Allied Health and minored in Public Health from East Tennessee State University in 2015. She then became an admission counselor for ETSU in 2016. In 2018, she graduated with her masters in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis with a concentration in Student Personnel before returning to the Plateau in 2019.
Jessica Welch
I am an Human Resources professional that specializes in employee relations and compensation. I partner with supervisors to provide them with the support and tools to assist them in their departmental goals. I also serve as an on-going representative on the Employee Advisory Committee where we strive for effective communication among all staff. I enjoy collaborating with others across campus on projects and programs to enhance the Sewanee work experience.
Dovan ‘Ace’ Willis
Dovan ‘Ace’ Willis is an Area Coordinator at The University of the South. Ace manages four Residential Halls and all Thematic Housing at the university, while also serving as the adviser for the Ayres Multicultural Center and Gamma Sigma Phi fraternity. In his role, Ace helps to create safe, inclusive, and diverse living/learning communities through student-led programming in the residential halls and thematic houses.
