Experience It.

Interdisciplinary Studies Faculty

Norman Muir, Ph.D.

Dean of the Undergraduate College, Associate Professor

Norman MuirDr. Norman Muir (nmuir@medaille.edu), acting chairperson for the Interdisciplinary Studies Department, joined Medaille College in June 2004 as the undergraduate academic dean. Since receiving his Ph.D. in Literature from SUNY Stony Brook in 1984, he has served as a full-time faculty member or academic administrator at three other small, private, independent colleges. His scholarly interests remain in the areas of sixteenth and seventeenth century British literature, with an emphasis on Elizabethan and Jacobean comedy. He continues to research and write about the influence of the theological doctrine of Christian Patience on Renaissance and seventeenth century literature through John Milton.

Dr. Muir has taught a variety of college writing and literature courses, ranging from developmental English to technical writing and from introduction to literature classes to a senior seminar in the novels of William Faulkner. While at Centenary College in New Jersey, he received the Lindback Foundation Award for Teaching Excellence after being nominated by his students. He has also had the good fortune of traveling to China twice in recent years to teach for short periods of time at five Chinese universities.

As an academic administrator, his primary interests are in academic program development, experiential learning, strategic planning, improving teaching and learning, and the assessment of student learning and institutional effectiveness.

His family includes his wife of thirty years, Donna, and his adopted daughter, Alexa Grace Fuyan Ting Muir, born in Changting County of Fujian Province in southeastern China. Alexa is in the fourth grade and already smarter than her father! Also living in the family residence are his mother, Joyce, and a gracefully aging parakeet of 13 years, Oliver.

He is a lifelong New Yankee fan with a passion for baseball. When not watching a Yankee game on television or playing with Alexa, he can be found indulging his interest in Italian Renaissance art and literature.



Deborah Ceppaglia, M.L.S.

Associate Professor and Senior Director for Special Academic Services



Erika Hamann, M.A.

Visiting Instructor

Erika HamannErika Hamann (ehamann@medaille.edu) joined the full-time faculty in 2006 and currently teaches in the Interdisciplinary Studies and Humanities departments. She began teaching at Medaille as an adjunct instructor in 2004. Erika holds a Master of Arts degree in English from Buffalo State College, where her academic focus was on Mark Twain, evolution and religion in Gilded Age/Victorian society. She also received her Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Buffalo State College.




Daniel Kotzin, Ph.D.

Acting Chair, Assistant Professor

Daniel KotzinDr. Daniel Kotzin (daniel.p.kotzin@medaille.edu) has been passionate about history since he attended the University of California at Irvine, where he obtained a bachelor's degree in history. As he continued his graduate studies in history at New York University in pursuit of a Ph.D., Dr. Kotzin became increasingly interested in American ethnic history and examing American history from a global perspective, particularly the ways in which Americans have tried to influence other nations.

After receiving his Ph.D. from New York University, he taught history at Beth Tfiloh Dahan High School in Maryland and then Kutztown University in Pennsylvania, where he emerged as a leader among the faculty in promoting active learning in the classroom. He has also been nationally recognized for his success as a teacher in Who's Who Among America's Teachers. Dr. Kotzin’s biography, Judah L. Magnes: An American Jewish Maverick, is due to be published by Syracuse University Press in 2010. This study of Judah Magnes, an American Jew who served as the first Chancellor of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and later emerged during the 1930s and 1940s as the leading advocate for peace between Jews and Arabs, examines the difficulty of transplanting American ideas and values to the Middle East.

Dr. Kotzin is now an assistant professor at Medaille College in the Social Science Department and Chair of the Interdisciplinary Studies Department. Currently he is writing articles on history pedagogy and beginning research on the history of the Jewish community in Buffalo, looking specifically at the papers of Rabbi Isaac Klein which are housed in the archives at the University of Buffalo.