University College
- Sustainable Development is a unit within Appalachian’s University College. University College consists of the university’s integrated general education curriculum, academic support services, residential learning communities, interdisciplinary degree programs and co-curricular programming – all designed to support the work of students both inside and outside of the classroom.
Faculty Information
Harvard Ayers (Professor, Anthropology; Ph.D., Catholic University of America)
His interests and areas of study include archaeology, physical anthropology, forensic anthropology, human ecology of the southern Appalachians, North American Indians, and the Southwestern US. Dr. Ayers will begin half-time retirement after this spring semester. He plans to continue teaching several courses including the Southwest Trip, as long as he can hike out of Canyon del Muerto. He will devote his "extra" time to his family including his two gorgeous grandchildren and his environmental work with Appalachian Voices.
Patricia D. Beaver (Ph.D. 1976, Duke University) 
Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Center for Appalachian Studies at Appalachian State University. She has conducted research in Appalachia and China, with particular interests in community, family, and public policy as well as issues related to gender, class, and ethnicity. She has taught courses in the Anthropology Department, many of which overlap with Appalachian Studies, Asian Studies and Women's Studies. She was project director of the Appalachian Land Ownership Study (discussed in Who Owns Appalachia, University Press of Kentucky 1983), co-editor with Burton Purrington of Cultural Adaptions to Mountain Environments (University of Georgia Press, 1984), author of Rural Community in the Appalachian South (Waveland, 1996), co-editor with Carol Hill of Cultural Diversity in the US South (forthcoming 1998, University of Georgia Press). Her recent research focuses on cultural and ethnic diversity in Appalachia, with attention to the African American and Jewish communities in Asheville, N.C., on Melungeon history and identity, and on rehistoricizing gender and ethnicity. Curriculum Vitae
Jefferson C. Boyer (Professor, Anthropology; Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) 
His interests and areas of study include social anthropology; peasants and social movements, agrarian studies, rural development and sustainability; community and regional studies; Honduras, Central America, and Appalachia. Recently, Boyer published the article "Reinventing the Appalachian Commons" in Berghahn Press's(2007)edited volume /The Global Idea of the Commons/, edited by Donald Nonini. His co-authored article "Participation versus Mobilization: Cultural Styles of Political Action in an Appalachian County" is forthcoming at the University of Tennessee Press in Susan Keefe's edited anthology /Participatory Development in Appalachia/. Recent papers include:
1.the co-authored "When the Well is Poisoned: Local Knowledge and the Politics of Scale in Shaping a Socially Responsible Wind Energy Strategy in Appalachia" at the April, 2008 Conference on Ethics and the Environment at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and
2. "Food Strategies and Sustainable Agriculture in Honduras: Agrarian Structures and Contemporary Neoliberalism" given at the Mellon-Sawyer Conference Fate of Food: Agricultural Production in the Fourth World Regime at UNC-Chapel Hill in April, 2008.
He is writing a manuscript entitled Once Upon an Agrarian Nation: Globalization Battles in Mesoamerican Honduras. Finally, Boyer is on the international advisory board of the Journal of Peasant Studies and board member of the Highlander Research and Education Center in New market, TN.
Kristan Cockerill (Ph.D., American Studies [Environment, Science and Technology], University of New Mexico).
Kristan has an interdisciplinary background and has taught a broad suite of university courses related to the environment, science and society. Her primary research areas include: 1) facilitating improved connections among social, scientific, and technical issues related to water policy; and 2) environmental education with an emphasis on industrial ecology and sustainability. She has more than 15 years professional experience as an environmental policy analyst working in the public sector on diverse projects ranging in topic from transportation to heavy metals to water management.
Susan E. Keefe (Ph.D. University of California, Santa Barbara) 
She has taught "Appalachian Culture," "Qualitative Methods," and "Ethnographic Field School" in the Appalachian Studies program. She also regularly supervises internships for graduate and undergraduate students in the Appalachian region. She serves on the Graduate Program Advisory Committee for the Center for Appalachian Studies and the Sustainable Development Program. She recently served on the Steering Committee of the Appalachian Studies Association and was the 1998 Conference Program Chair. In 1998 she also served as President of the Southern Anthropology Society. Her research interests include ethnicity, social organization and medical and applied anthropology. She edited Appalachian Mental Health (University of Kentucky Press, 1988) and is currently editing another volume tentatively titled Culturally-Relevant Practice in Appalachia.
Gregory Reck (Professor and Chair, Anthropology; PhD, Catholic University of America).
Dr. Reck has conducted ethnographic field work in rural Mexico, India and Appalachia. His field research has focused on various impacts of global processes on small communities. His other professional interests focus on ethnographic writing strategies, the history of ethnographic theory, and U.S. foreign policy. Dr. Reck's most recent papers have focused on a critical examination of the empire of global capital and how natural and human-made disasters are exploited to expand the reach of that empire. He has been team-teaching a course entitled "9/11" that examines the before and after contexts of that event.
Xiaorong Shao (Assistant Professor, Information Literacy Librarian)
Xiaorong Shao works as a cataloger and reference librarian in Appalachian's Belk Library and Information Commons. She earned an M.L.S. degree in information and library science from Clarion University of Pennsylvania. Shao obtained a master's degree from the University of Reading, UK, and a doctorate from Pennsylvania State University in agricultural education with a concentration in curriculum and instruction. Her bachelor's degree, received from Northwest Agricultural University in China, is in soil science and chemistry.
Shao came to Appalachian as a Faculty Fellow in 2006. Her research and teaching interests are curriculum and instruction, and international and diversity education. She is also interested in teaching statistics and research methods in the social and behavioral sciences. Currently, she serves on several committees including the Appalachian State University International Education Council and the Library Diversity Committee.
Chuck Smith, Director, Sustainable Development, (ABD, Virginia Tech, Science and Technology Studies)
His interests are varied and interdisciplinary including environmental history, philosophy of history and nature, the sociology of modern environmentalism, and the interrelationships of science, technology and society. He has taught courses in Society and Technology, Philosophy of Science, Western and American Intellectual and Social History, and various special topics. Chuck Smith received both his Masters and Bachelor of Science degrees from Appalachian State University. His MA is in Industrial Technology with concentrations in Appropriate Technology and History, and his BS is in History.
