Dr. James E. Waller has been appointed Cohen Chair for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, the first endowed professorship at Keene State College. He’ll be on board for the Fall 2010 semester.

Dr. Waller earned his Ph.D. in social psychology at the University of Kentucky and comes to us from Spokane, Washington, where he was professor of psychology at Whitworth University from 1988, holding the rotating Edward B. Lindamann Chair during 2003–07. He received Whitworth’s award for Outstanding Junior Faculty Achievement in Teaching and Research in 1993 and the Teaching Excellence Award in 1996. His book, Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing, now in its second edition with Oxford University Press, is a standard text for students of genocide throughout the United States.

Professor Waller will play a significant role in Keene State College’s new baccalaureate program in Holocaust and Genocide Studies, offering key courses in genocide and comparative genocide. Active both nationally and internationally in Holocaust and genocide studies, he has held fellowships with the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies in Washington, DC, and is an instructor for the Raphael Lemkin Seminar for Genocide Prevention at the Auschwitz Institute for Peace and Reconciliation.