Faculty

Adjunct + Affiliated Faculty

• William Greene

  Email: greenew@cofc.edu

  William Greene is a musician, writer, and educator living in Charleston, SC. He holds a BA in Writing from the Pratt Institute, an MA in English from UC Davis. In 2018 he was awarded the Amy T. McCandless Fellowship to attend the MFA in Creative Writing program at the College of Charleston. Upon completion of both his MFA and a Graduate Certificate in Arts and Cultural Management, he was awarded a Post-MFA Teaching Fellowship to teach in the CofC English Department.
  
  Before moving to Charleston, will ran the Upstar Media Lab at Sunset Youth Services in San Francisco, teaching videography and audio production as part of the youth-run record label Upstar Records. He also co-founded the educational and performance space The Schoolhouse on Market Street in San Francisco, which garnered a Best of the Bay award from the SF Bay Guardian in 2011. While completing his MFA at CofC, he worked as a recreation coordinator at the Windwood Home for Children in Awendaw, SC, where he was able to combine his passions for teaching, creativity, youth work, and kickball.
  
  Will has independently released three full-length albums since 2013, the latter two in collaboration with Spoleto regulars the Living Earth Show and SF-based producer Lazer Wolf. Will's music has been featured by KALW Radio in San Francisco and the Michigan Quarterly Mixtape. His writing has appeared in the Seneca Review, Plainsongs, and Beyond Words Literary Magazine.
  
  Will currently teaches in the Arts Management Program and the English Department. 

  Courses Taught:
  ARTM 225: The Art of Creativity
  ARTM 230: The Music Industry in Context

• Katie Hirsch

  Email: hirschkm@cofc.edu

  Katie Hirsch is an arts administrator, art historian, and curator. She is currently the Director of the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art. 

  Katie’s diverse arts background has informed her interdisciplinary approach to the study and exhibition of art and material culture. As a graduate student at Florida State University, Katie specialized in the study of the art and culture of the Ancient Maya. She quickly discovered a passion for teaching while serving as a Patricia Rose Teaching Fellow in FSU’s Art History Department. Katie’s professional path took a turn when she moved to Shanghai, China. There, she served as Senior Curator of island6 Arts Center, a commercial contemporary art gallery. As Senior Curator, she coordinated exhibitions at five international gallery locations, overseeing curatorial direction and managing daily operations.

  After relocating to Charleston, Katie worked in Development Special Events for Spoleto Festival USA. Now at the Halsey, she loves being a part of the team that brings adventurous contemporary art to the Charleston community. 

  Course Taught:
  ARTM 230: Museum & Gallery Fundamentals

• Lori Kornegay

  Email: kornegayl@cofc.edu

  Lori Kornegay is an adjunct faculty member in the Arts Management Program. Most recently, she served as Art Curator at the SC State Museum (2017-18) and Curator of Art & Public Engagement at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at CofC (2015-16). Before joining the Halsey, Kornegay was Director of the Summer Study Program at Sotheby’s Institute of Art in New York, where she was responsible for directing academic standards and program design for courses covering topics in art business and contemporary art. Previous to her time in NYC, she worked in the SC arts community including serving as Visiting Assistant Professor in the Arts Management Program at CofC and working in the visual arts department at the South Carolina Arts Commission. Kornegay holds a bachelor's degree in microbiology from Clemson University and a master's degree in art history from the University of South Carolina.

  Courses Taught:
  ARTM 200: Introduction to Arts Management
  ARTM 240: Museum & Gallery Fundamentals

• Erin Leigh

  Email: leighe@cofc.edu

  Erin Leigh has over twenty years’ experience in the field of arts-in-education. Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, Erin performed and was a teaching artist with the Dance Theater Collective before earning her M.F.A in Dance from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She currently teaches at the College of Charleston and is a teaching artist with Engaging Creative Minds. She has presented dance integrated workshops through Young Audiences of Greater Cleveland, Creative Cornerstones at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Creative Teaching in the Classroom through the College of Charleston, Engaging Creative Minds, the Palmetto State Arts Education Conference, the Charleston Gaillard Center, and through the South Carolina Dance Association. Erin Leigh is the Artistic Director of Dance Matters, a Charleston, SC based dance education company, and in January 2020 she became a certified Laban Bartenieff Movement Analyst through the Integrated Movement Studies program.

  Course Taught:
  ARCM 564: Arts Education, Community Engagement, and Advocacy

• Simone Liberty

  Email: libertys@cofc.edu
  
  Simone Liberty is a grant writer and teaching and practicing artist of dance, musical theatre, and visual art.

  Simone graduated from the College of Charleston with a B.A. in Arts Management in 2019 and from the College of Charleston’s graduate school in 2021 with a Master of Public Administration (MPA) and a certificate in Arts and Cultural Management. While completing work in her graduate program, she worked at the Charleston Gaillard Center as the Grants Manager and Teaching Artist, raising funds for artistic excellence at the Center and teaching for the Center’s Education and Community Outreach Program. In her pursuit to better understand the scope of the art networks both local to Charleston, and state-wide, Simone completed work as an Artist Services Apprentice at Spoleto Festival, USA, the Graduate Assistant for the Arts and Cultural Certificate Program at her alma mater, and the Graduate Fellow for the South Carolina Arts Alliance.

  Simone has an unwavering love for arts education, driving her to teach for the Charleston-based company Dance.Laugh.Learn and develop her own curriculum in theatre, dance, and musical theatre. She is currently creating a curriculum for a variety of ages that teaches confidence-building and physical wellness through the arts.

  Course Taught:
  ARTM 270: Professionalism in the Arts

• Charlie Maybee

  Email: maybeecm@cofc.edu
  
  Charlie Maybee (he/him) is a choreographer, musician, teacher, and writer based in Charleston, South Carolina. He holds an MFA in Dance from the University of Illinois with a certificate in Criticism and Interpretive Theory, a BFA in Dance and Choreography from Virginia Commonwealth University and is an alumnus of the Metropolitan Youth Tap Ensemble. Before joining the faculty of the College of Charleston, he taught at both Shenandoah University (SU) in Winchester, Virginia, and American University (AU) in Washington, D.C. where he specialized in tap and modern dance technique classes, oversaw the Culminating Projects of SU Seniors in the BA Dance program, and provided musical accompaniment for dance classes with drums, guitar, and piano. 
  
  In 2014, he founded his own performing company, Polymath Performance Project, through which he creates interdisciplinary performances nationally that center tap dance as the primary mode of expression. His current choreo-scholarly research explores hybridity, literary archetypes, and techno-cultures through a tap dancer’s perspective and works to make tap dance more pronounced in contemporary performance and higher education. Recent accolades include being a featured artist for the 2022 BlackLight Summit at the University of Maryland-College Park where he presented his latest commissioned work, “Protologism”, did a co-keynote speech with Krystal Collins, and devised the pilot issue of the new publication, POLYzine. He was also recently selected for the 2022-2023 cohort of the NextLOOK 2.0 residency program through The Clarice Smith Center for Performing Arts where he will continue developing his first evening length performance, Thrashes To Ashes. 
  
  Charlie also works remotely as a contributing writer for the D.C., Maryland, and Virginia (DMV) based digital publication, Alchemical Records, which covers new events and releases in the local music scene and beyond. Other recent writing experiences include contributing to the Creative Entry digital publication series at Dance Place in Washington, D.C., and presenting papers about tap dance aesthetics and history at the 2021 and 2022 Dance Studies Association Conferences.

  Course Taught:
  ARTM 209: Introduction to Audio Production
  ARTM 230: The Music Industry in Context

• Mary Beth Natarajan

  Email: natarajanme@cofc.edu
  
  Mary Beth Natarajan is best known for her work as a growth catalyst and change agent who builds and mentors dynamic teams, leverages technology, and elevates brands. She joins the College of Charleston as an adjunct instructor after a 30+ years serving Fortune 500 companies, small high-tech start-ups, and nonprofit performing arts organizations.

  During her 3.5-year tenure as Executive Director of Charleston Jazz, Mary Beth increased ticket revenue by 79%, raised over $1.4M in contributions, and launched a new academy. Most recently, she worked as Chief Marketing Officer of the Dayton Performing Arts Alliance (DPAA), the first arts organization in the United States to manage three art forms (ballet, opera, and philharmonic) under one management umbrella, offering 50 to 80 performances each season.

  Mary Beth has successfully launched new products and services for such companies as Emerson and Blackbaud, where she had an opportunity to rebrand the company and expand “bbcon” to become the largest nonprofit tech conference in the world. 

  Mary Beth’s community work includes being a long-time board member and marketing/performance chair of TEDxCharleston, speaking at Pecha Kucha Charleston 28 in 2018, and sitting on the board of Chamber Music in Yellow Springs. In addition to currently working as a consultant and adjunct instructor, Mary Beth is an RYT 200 yoga teacher and a co-founder/director of a meditation school and fine art studio with her husband, Muni.  

  Course Taught:
  ARCM 572: Data Management and Cloud-Based Technologies for Arts and Cultural Organizations
  ARTM 321: Arts Marketing and Public Relations

• Evie Palmisano

  Email: palmisanoea@cofc.edu 
  
  Evie Palmisano is the technical director of the Sottile Theatre at the College of Charleston. Originally from Charlotte, NC, Evie graduated summa cum laude from the College of Charleston with a BA in Arts Maangement in 2016 and received a Master of Arts in Music Technology in 2021. 

  Course Taught:
  ARTM 211: Introduction to Live Sound

   

   

    

• Scott Shanklin-Peterson

  Scott Shanklin-Peterson is a Senior Fellow of the Arts Management Program. She has a B.A. in Visual Arts and graduated from Harvard University's Institute of Arts Administration.

  Shanklin-Peterson was Director of the Arts Management Program for over ten years until her retirement in 2014. She formerly served as Senior Deputy Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, where she worked to develop national programs and initiatives to broaden public access to the excellence and diversity of the arts across Amercia.

  Prior to her appointment at the Arts Endowment, Shanklin-Peterson was Executive Director of the South Carolina Arts Commission. She has also served as chairman of the Board of Directors of the Southern Arts Federation, and on the boards of the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies and the American Council for the Arts.

• Zinnia Willits

  Email: willitsz@cofc.edu 

  Zinnia Willits is the Executive Director of the Southeastern Museums Conference (SEMC). Prior to this role, which she assumed in May 2020, she served as the Director of Collections and Operations at the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, South Carolina where she managed the museum's permanent collection and operations as well as logistics for its active exhibition and loan programs for seventeen years. Zinnia was the President of the Southeastern Museums Conference (SEMC) when she assumed the role of Executive Director and had been a member of SEMC Council of Directors since 2015.  She served as Program Committee Chair for SEMC 2017 and also chaired the Scholarship and Evaluation Committees.

  Zinnia completed two terms on the American Alliance of Museums National Program Committee (2018-2019), is a current Accreditation Reviewer as well as a Peer Reviewer for the Museum Assessment Program in the area of Collections Stewardship. She has presented sessions on registration and collections management at state, regional and national conferences and has expertise in the areas of collections management, storage planning, career management, grant writing and museum operations. Zinnia’s contributions to publications include “Museums in Motion Today: To Collect" and “Government Grants" (see below for full publication details).

  Zinnia earned a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology with a concentration in archaeology from the University of Illinois and received her Master of Arts in Public History from the University of South Carolina. Zinnia lives and works in Charleston, South Carolina, is an avid runner and has tackled two half-marathons.

  Courses Taught:
  ARCM 574: Managing Arts and Cultural Resources