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Two faculty members elected to emeritus status will be recognized at the 169th commencement Saturday.
JOSEPH JAMES MARTIN, associate professor of English, is a specialist in modern British and Irish fiction, with a focus on experimental novels. He has published articles on Joseph Conrad, William Golding, Samuel Beckett, and John Fowles, and is currently working on a book about postmodernist English fiction of the 1980s.
Since coming to Lafayette as an instructor in 1967, Martin has taught a wide variety of courses in literary history, critical theory, and film, as well as fiction and composition. He served as assistant head of the English department from 1985 to 1990 and as acting head of the department for two semesters during that period.
He was director of the Theodore Roethke Poetry Festival at Lafayette in 1980, 1985, and 1987, and served as chairperson of the Academic Progress Committee during the academic year 1996-97. Martin has been internship coordinator for his department since 1993. He led students to Ireland for January interim session courses in 2001 and 2003. He also developed and taught two First-Year Seminars: “Masculinities” and “America’s World War II.”
Martin received the Thomas Roy and Lura Forrest Jones Faculty Lecture Award in 1975 and summer seminar awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1975, 1979, and 1982. He taught in the NEH-sponsored Commonwealth Partnership Literature Institute for Secondary School Teachers held at Lafayette in summer 1985.
A 1959 graduate of Fordham University with a bachelor of science in English, Martin earned a master of arts in English from Indiana University in 1965, and a doctorate in English from Pennsylvania State University in 1971.
THOMAS W. NORTON, professor of sociology, has taught a wide variety of courses on American society with particular emphasis on social inequality, organizational analysis, and social change during his 37 years on the faculty. A major interest has been the American business system, particularly the corporation from social, cultural, and political perspectives. He has also taught courses which have incorporated the study of business and institutional ethics and has published several articles in, and has been a consultant to, Business Ethics Quarterly.
Norton arrived at Lafayette in fall 1955 as a freshman. Graduating in 1959, he returned as an instructor of sociology in fall 1967. A founding member of the department of sociology and anthropology, Norton and a few of his colleagues were instrumental in establishing the department in 1967 and developing its mission and disciplinary structure.
He has served on a variety of faculty committees during his career, including chairing the Enrollment Planning Committee in 2001-02, during which time there was a collective effort in establishing new programs to enhance the recruitment of a more socially and culturally diverse student body. He has also served on faculty-trustee committees and was the faculty representative to the Executive Committee of the Alumni Association.
Norton received the Christian and Mary Lindback Distinguished Teaching Award in 1982, the Thomas Roy and Lura Forrest Jones Faculty Lecture Award in 1976, and the Daniel Golden ’34 Faculty Award for service to the College in 1998.
He received his M.B.A. in 1964 at the University of Pittsburgh, from which he also earned his Ph.D. in sociology in 1973.
Currently a commissioner of the Easton Housing Authority, Norton is also a member of the Easton Area School District accreditation for growth citizenship team. He is a past president of the former Easton Downtown Improvement Group.