农夫导航

The Honors Program is led by a dedicated group of faculty and staff committed to creating a supportive, intellectually engaging environment for students.

From advising and teaching to mentoring thesis and capstone projects, the Honors team works closely with students at every stage of the program.

 

Leadership

Zackary Ross, Honors Program Director

Ph.D., University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2014
Office: Library B04A
Email: zross@bellarmine.edu
Phone: 502.272.8431

Dr. Zackary Ross is Director of the Honors Program and Associate Professor of Theatre. He has a Ph.D. in Theatre from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a master鈥檚 degree in Educational Theatre from New York University, and is an honors graduate of Lewis and Clark College鈥檚 theatre department in Portland, Oregon.

In addition to his experience as an educator, Zack is an active theatre artist. As a director, his most recent productions include She Kills Monster, Romeo & Juliet, Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom, Asking Strangers the Meaning of Life, Commedie of Errors, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Blithe Spirit, and 44 Plays for 44 Presidents. As and actor, he has appeared most recently in Frederick Knott's Wait Until Dark, The Neo-futurists Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, Christopher Durang's The Actor鈥檚 Nightmare, and Wendy Kesselman's adaptation of The Dairy of Anne Frank. His dramaturgy credits include The Illusion freely adapted from Pierre Corneille鈥檚 L鈥橧llusion Comique by Tony Kushner, Iphigenia and Other Daughters by Ellen McLaughlin, and Buried Child by Sam Shepard.

Zack's research interests include theatrical adaptation, contemporary drama, theatre and social change, early modern drama, and trauma studies. Recently, Zack published a chapter entitled 鈥�Too Much Memory: Interrogating the National Trauma of the War on Terror鈥� in Reflecting 9/11: New Narratives of Crisis, Disaster and Change (2016).

Courtney Keim, Honors Program Assistant Director

Ph.D., University of Memphis
Office: Library B04B
Email: akeim@bellarmine.edu
Phone: 502.272.8019

Dr. Courtney Keim is an Associate Professor of Psychology and Assistant Director of the Honors Program. She received her B.A. in Psychology from Christian Brothers University and her Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology, with a concentration in Industrial & Organizational Psychology, from the University of Memphis. Her research focus is on organizational wellness and psychologically healthy workplace practices. Dr. Keim teaches courses such as Honors Introductory Psychology, Personality Psychology, Professions in Psychology, Introduction to Industrial and Organizational Psychology, and Organizational Behavior and Leadership. She also supervises psychology internships, advises student theses, and enjoys mentoring students.
 
Dr. Keim is President of the Kentucky Psychological Foundation, where she leads initiatives in diversity, equity, and inclusion, psychologically healthy workplaces in Kentucky, student mentorship programs, and highlighting psychological research. In addition, Dr. Keim has consulted with many organizations, including departments within Louisville Metro Government, Norton Behavioral Medicine, and Maryhurst.
 
Dr. Keim enjoys cooking with her husband and daughter, practicing yoga, baking all kinds of sourdough breads and goodies, and watching sports.

 

Diana Vetter Moore, Graduate Administrative Assistant

Ph.D., University of Kentucky
Office: Library B17
Email: dvetter@bellarmine.edu

Diana Vetter Moore is a graduate of Transylvania University and the University of Kentucky where she received her Doctor of Musical Arts in vocal performance. Dr. Moore is passionate about music education and vocal health and serves as an adjunct faculty member at 农夫导航 and Bluegrass Community and Technical College. Her hobbies include hiking, traveling, house plants, and making crafts. Diana is excited to be joining the Honors Program as a Graduate Administrative Assistant as she pursues her Ph.D. in Leadership in Higher Education. 

Emily Bingham, Ph.D. Visiting Honors Faculty Fellow

Ph.D., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1998
Office: Library B17
Email: emily@emilybingham.net
Website: 

What do we want from history? A reassuring narrative of triumph? A guide to the future? Something complex that, acknowledging the limits of knowability, binds the present and past into a web where we can find connection and understanding across time and space and identities? Born in Louisville, Dr. Bingham holds a B.A. from Harvard University and earned her Ph.D. at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Tying together her work is the effort to see the impact of ideas in United States history and society on real (non-famous) people and social structures. She has written and taught about conservative southern regionalism, Enlightenment liberalism, gender and labor, the purpose and meaning of childhood, sexuality, and an 1850s blackface minstrel song that is with us still. People are wired to connect to stories, and Bingham uses biography and cultural history to follow ideas through human decisions and identities, just as they course through each of us. Dr. Bingham鈥檚 first teaching job in Louisville was at Bellarmine College in 1998; she has also taught at Centre College, University of Louisville, and St. Francis High School. She is excited to offer honors seminars and guide thesis projects and otherwise support Bellarmine undergraduates. When not in researching in the archives or writing books, she is biking in the parks, walking in the woods, dreaming of Italy and Italian food, and enjoying time with her husband and three children. 

Select Publications and Presentations

• My Old Kentucky Home: The Astonishing Life and Reckoning of an Iconic American Song, Alfred. A. Knopf, 2022.  
• 鈥淔orget About It: Slavery in Stephen Foster鈥檚 鈥楳y Old Kentucky Home, Goodnight!鈥� Memory Studies Association, Charlottesville, VA, June 18-21, 2020.
• 鈥溾�橪et鈥檚 Buy It!鈥�: Tourism, Race, and Marketing Early Twentieth-Century Kentucky,鈥� Ohio Valley History 19 (Fall 2019): 27-56. 
• 鈥淎 Race about Race鈥� Louisville Magazine, May 2019
• 鈥溾�橭ld Kentucky Home鈥擫et鈥檚 Buy It!鈥� Nostalgia and Tourism as Economic Development in Jim Crow Kentucky,鈥� Southern Historical Association, Louisville, KY, November 9, 2019
• 鈥淐an We Talk About Stephen Foster?鈥� Irish Arts Center, New York, September 27, 2018
• Irrepressible: Henrietta Bingham鈥檚 Jazz-Age Life, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015.
• 鈥淣obody鈥檚 Bizness if I Do: Henrietta Bingham: Jazz Hound, Bloomsbury Muse, and Queer Culture Vixen,鈥� Elizabeth Sackler Center for Feminist Art, January 24, 2016
• 鈥淜entucky in Bloomsbury:Henrietta Bingham, Black Culture, and the Southern Gothic in Jazz-Age London,鈥� Varieties of Southern Religious History Regina Sullivan and Monte Hampton, eds., University of South Carolina Press, 2015.
• 鈥淜entucky in Bloomsbury: Henrietta Bingham and the 1920s,鈥� Eighth Conference on Southern Women鈥檚 History, Southern Association of Women鈥檚 Historians, Columbia, SC, June 6, 2009.
• 鈥淎merican, Jewish, Southern, Mordecai: Constructing Identities to 1865,鈥� in Jewish Roots in Southern Soil: A New History, edited by Marcie Ferris and Mark Greenberg, University Press of New England, 2006.
• 鈥淭hou knowest not what a day may bring forth:Intellect, Power, Conversion, and Apostasy in the Life of Rachel Mordecai Lazarus (1788-1838),鈥� in Rethinking Religion in the American South, edited by Donald G. Mathews and Beth Barton Schweiger, University of North Carolina Press, 2004.
• Mordecai: An Early American Family, Hill and Wang, 2003.
• 鈥淭he Female Academy and Beyond: Three Mordecai Sisters at Work in the Old South,鈥� in Neither Lady, Nor Slave: Working Women in the Old South, edited by Susanna Delfino and Michele Gillespie, University of North Carolina Press, 2002.
• The Southern Agrarians and the New Deal: Essays After I鈥檒l Take My Stand, ed. with Thomas Underwood, University Press of Virginia, 2001.

 

Honors Council Members

Our Honors Council consists of dedicated faculty members from various academic disciplines who serve as mentors and advocates for our students. They help shape the program, develop new opportunities, and ensure the success of all Honors students. Council members include:

• Dr. Michele Abee, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies
• Dr. Andrew Carnes, Associate Professor of Exercise Science
• Dr. Kristin Cook, Professor of Education
• Dr. Louie Hehman, Assistant Professor of Music
• Dr. Josef Jareczek, Assistant Professor of Biology
• Dr. Stella Kanchewa, Assistant Professor of Psychology
• Dr. Haley Karimi, Assistant Professor of Business
• Dr. Mary Kroetz, Assistant Professor of Biology
• Dr. Mike LaRocco, Assistant Professor of Digital Media
• Dr. Amanda Noorani, Assistant Professor of Nursing
• Dr. Conor Picken, Associate Professor of English
• Dr. Sayani Sarkar, Assistant Professor of Computer Science
• Dr. Jess Smith, Assistant Professor of Education
• Dr. Evanthia Speliotis, Professor of Philosophy
• Dr. Gabri Warren, Assistant Professor of Nursing

 

Honors Student Advisory Board

The Honors Program Student Advisory Board plays a vital role in shaping the student experience by organizing co-curricular and social events and providing student input to the Honors Council on various matters related to the program. Board members serve as a bridge between students and faculty, ensuring that the voices of Honors students are heard and their needs are met.

The board meets monthly to plan events, share ideas, and discuss issues that impact the Honors Program. The President and Vice-Presidents also meet regularly with the Honors Program Director and the Honors Council to present student recommendations and feedback.

Board members serve for one academic year, with elections held at the beginning of each fall semester. The President鈥檚 position is open to all sophomores, juniors, and seniors in good standing in the program, while the vice-presidential roles are open to any student in good standing.

 

2025-2026 Student Advisory Board

President: Lindsay Smith     

VP of Community Engagement: Aubrey Ellis

VP of Communication: Julia Devadason

Senior Rep: Caitlin Perry

Junior Rep: Caroline Boehmer

Sophomore Rep: Allison Stubbs

First-Year Rep: Graicey Greenwell

At Large Officers: Madeline Freeman, Vania Grayson-Vargas, Alex Knyshev

 

How to Get Involved

If you have ideas, comments, or concerns that you would like addressed by the Student Advisory Board or the Honors Council, please reach out to your year鈥檚 representative. They are here to represent your voice and ensure the program continues to evolve in a way that best serves the students.