By Cal Lutheran NewsThe Board of Regents awarded emeritus status to five Cal Lutheran faculty members who retired in May 2023 and have a combined total of more than 115 years of service.
The honorees are theater arts professor Michael Arndt (41 years), associate professor of special education Elizabeth Brennan (12 years), education professor Michael McCambridge (21 years), associate professor of English Bruce Stevenson (27 years) and professor of information technology management Paul Witman (17 years).
Arndt, in addition to teaching courses in acting, directing and theater history, directed numerous Cal Lutheran theater productions, and founded and serves as artistic director of the Kingsmen Shakespeare Company, the university’s professional theater. A Vietnam combat veteran, he’s also collected and dramatized the stories of other veterans. He has received the Thousand Oaks Arts Commission Certificate for Excellence in the Arts, the Excellence in Theatre Education Award from Region VIII of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, the CLU Community Leaders Association’s Bill Hamm Award, and the Alliance for the Arts’ Exemplary Performing Arts Educator Award.
Brennan joined the Graduate School of Education faculty in 2011 as an associate professor, then served as associate dean of the Graduate School of Education and eventually director of special education programs. Her interest in supporting individuals with disabilities started at an early age when she volunteered at a summer camp for children with intellectual and physical disabilities. She began her professional career as an instructional aide for students with significant disabilities. Her academic interests include social-emotional skill development for K-12 students and teachers, co-teaching in higher education, and inclusive classroom support for students with disabilities.
McCambridge, director of liberal studies in education for the Graduate School of Education, has more than 40 years of teaching and administration experience at all levels of education. As a university professor, he created opportunities for teachers and teachers-in-training to explore how theory informs good practices that result in academic, personal, social and moral growth and development of K-12 students. He received the President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2008, was voted Professor of the Year in 2009 and 2013 by the senior class and earned the Excellence in Teaching Award from the Graduate School of Education in 2015.
Stevenson, a 1980 graduate of Cal Lutheran, returned to his alma mater in 1996. A former chair of the English department and former chair of the University Faculty, he taught courses in American literature, history of the novel, literary criticism, and early American fiction. His scholarship centered on the post-Revolutionary novel in America and how the discourse of the period articulated social and political anxieties. He was the faculty sponsor for Cal Lutheran’s chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, the international English honor society.
Witman is the founder and former director of the MS in Information Technology program at the School of Management, and former director of the school’s undergraduate programs in business, accounting and economics. His research interests include social networking for nonprofits, information security, health care information, and electronic banking and finance. He also frequently wrote case studies based on current events, focused on how information is used to take advantage of vulnerable populations. Before joining Cal Lutheran, Witman served as the director of integration engineering for Digital Insight Corporation, and director of global delivery systems at Citibank.
