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UPDATED: Sept. 30, 2021 at 1:22 p.m.

Syracuse University recently hired 10 new faculty members in the College of Visual and Performing Arts.

The Daily Orange spoke with the nine professors who started in the fall 2021 semester to ask them how their previous experiences will serve in their teaching and research as well as what they hope for in the future of their departments.

Izmir Ickbal: assistant professor, theater design and technology

Originally from Singapore, Izmir Ickbal is a multidisciplinary theater designer with 12 years of experience in the industry. He said it was not an easy journey to apply for a teaching job in the U.S. It was a surprise for him to get a tenure-track position at VPA. 

“I really wasn’t expecting to get the job,” Ickbal said. “I’m still trying to pinch myself every day to be like, ‘Oh my God. Am I really here?’” 

Although it has only been several weeks since the start of the semester, Ickbal said he was impressed by many talented theater students in his classes. 

Ickbal also hopes to give more voices to underrepresented and misrepresented groups, as well as reduce Eurocentrism in theater. He also hopes to bring more diverse lenses to his students in the field of theater design. 

“I’m trying to get all my students — who are majority white students — to not see the world in that singular lens anymore,” Ickbal said. “But to see that there are far bigger ways to appreciate any text, plays, opera or musical.”

ChaCha N. Hudson: assistant teaching professor, fashion design

ChaCha N. Hudson said she wants to bring her students more opportunities to succeed in their future careers. 

Hudson taught at multiple different institutions including the University of Delaware. Hudson said she decided to come to SU because it gives her freedom to incorporate her research interest with VPA’s existing curriculum. 

“At a lot of universities, you have to stick with the courses that are already implemented. But at SU, I have the freedom to bring in all of the things that I find joy in,” Hudson said. “That’s really important in the fashion industry, to teach my students and help them to grow.”

Hudson also runs her own fashion design business and hopes to bring her experience to her students looking to pursue a similar career.

“My goal is to get 100% job placement for my fashion design students if they wish to be in industry or they wish to open up a business full-time or part-time,” Hudson said. 

Gabrielle Demeestère: assistant teaching professor, film

After receiving her Master of Fine Arts at New York University, Gabrielle Demeestère taught screenwriting at Rutgers University from 2018 to 2021 before joining SU. 

Demeestère, who is teaching two screenwriting courses and a graduate level film project, said that her role and experience as a narrative filmmaker could help SU’s film department become more robust.

“There’s some desire to have more resources to have more upscale equipment. So I’d love to find funds, bring more equipment to the school,” Demeestère said. “Also just develop the narrative filmmaking part of the curriculum.” 

Jim Elenteny: assistant teaching professor, sound recording technology 

Jim Elenteny said he joined SU because of the supportive environment of the campus community. He came to the university following his previous job as a recording engineer at Western Carolina University.

Elenteny, who went to high school in New York, said he was familiar with SU’s reputation for being a large research institution. Many people he worked with spoke highly of their experience with SU.

“I wanted to be a part of the community here,” Elenteny said.

Although the sound recording field is constantly changing with new technologies, he said he hopes to provide his students the necessary skills to adapt to these changes quickly. 

“I want to provide students in this area a toolkit,” Elenteny said. “I want them to have the skills, the experience and the confidence so that when they go out into the professional world, they can easily adapt and change with these changes that will happen quickly in this field.”

Alix N. Ferrer-Yulfo: faculty fellow, museum studies 

Alix N. Ferrer-Yulfo received her Ph.D. in museums and intangible cultural heritage at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom. Now she wants to bring her field of study into VPA’s curriculum. 

“What was great about this opportunity in Syracuse was that I had the freedom to teach what I wanted and what I knew,” Ferrer-Yulfo said. “They gave me the flexibility to adapt the course to what I was able to bring.”

Ferrer-Yulfo said topics regarding intangible cultural heritage have been discussed abroad much more than they have in the U.S. She wants to bring the topic into VPA’s current curriculum and change the nature of the program. 

“For intangible cultural heritage, people are the key,” Ferrer-Yulfo said. “You need to establish really good relationships and engage with much more than just museum visitors. You need to engage with the community.”

Loren Loiacono: assistant teaching professor, composition and theory

Loren Loiacono is a freelance composer who is now teaching composition and theory at Setnor School of Music. She is familiar with central New York, as she previously attended Cornell University and taught at Colgate University. She is excited to join the SU community and return to the central New York area.  

The hardest part of her transition to SU was returning to in-person learning, she said. She spent all of last year teaching remotely and is now adapting to the new normal. 

“Everything is a little scary because of COVID,” Loiacono said. “I don’t know if the transition itself was harder because of COVID. It was definitely a change going from totally remote teaching last year to being back on campus and masked. That definitely took a little adjusting to.”  

Carmen M. Martinez: assistant professor, theater design and technology

Carmen M. Martinez is making the permanent move to Syracuse after spending last semester on campus as a visiting artist. She formerly ran her own studio in New York City where she made props and costumes and had a small jewelry line. 

Fellow VPA professors encouraged her to make the permanent transition to teaching, she said. Her experience as a visiting artist was her first time teaching traditionally, and during this time, she learned that it was her passion.

“I decided to use the visiting position as a try-out, and I fell in love with teaching. I fell in love with the students and their potential and how talented everyone is and committed to their craft.”   

Felipe Panama: assistant teaching professor, musical theater

Felipe Panama is a professional ballet dancer who danced for Syracuse City Ballet for two years. He also has international dance experience as a teacher and dancer.

Now at VPA, he teaches ballet technique and jazz technique. Although he has been teaching for six years, he said he has wanted to teach college-level dance.

“It would be a great opportunity for me to get involved with the school and their mission to really change, diversify and keep the musical theater world constantly evolving,” Panama said.

Panama is looking to instill confidence in his students when it comes to dance, enabling them to have a well-rounded musical theatre education.

“Some of the students are a bit intimidated by movement, especially some of the freshmen,” Panama said. “We want to get the students equally as talented in the dance as they are in their singing. That’s what we want to do to really level out the talent ratio between acting and singing and the movement portion of musical theater.

Rochele Royster: assistant professor, art therapy

Rochele Royster joins SU from Chicago, Illinois, where she worked as a special education teacher and learning behavior specialist in Chicago public schools. She made the move from Chicago to Syracuse after receiving her Ph.D. in community psychology and realizing she wanted to do more to impact policy. 

“(My Ph.D.) opened the door for me to teach on a college level, so when I heard about the creative arts therapy program that was opening up at Syracuse, I jumped at the chance to interview,” Royster said.

The art therapy master degree is one of VPA’s newest programs. It currently has three full time faculty including Royster, and has a mostly online curriculum with a few on-campus aspects.

“Art therapy … is like counsling, but we’re using art as the vehicle of expression, so it’s a way to cope with trauma, and … become more holistic in terms of mental health and wellness,” Royster said.

Royster was excited to make the move to Syracuse and help mold the art therapy program which just started in 2019.

“I was really excited to come and put my own input into a new program,” Royster said. “I have experience teaching … so I was just really interested in coming and combining things that I’ve learned but also starting something new.”

CORRECTION: A previous version of this post misstated the university at which Gabrielle Demeestère received her Master of Fine Arts. The Daily Orange regrets this error. 

Published on September 30, 2021 at 12:06 am

Contact Shantel: [email protected] | @shantelguzman2