News Releases @ TCC

FULBRIGHT SCHOLAR IN RESIDENCE JOINS TCC AND NSU FACULTY IN 2004-5

Native Kenyan to teach Swahili and African women’s literature

HAMPTON ROADS, Va. – (Aug. 9, 2004) – Tidewater Community College welcomes its first Fulbright scholar, Andrew Mwenda Mbatiah, who joins the faculty as a Scholar in Residence for the next academic year. Mbatiah, who will live and work in South Hampton Roads, brings a wealth of knowledge to students and faculty of TCC and its scholarship partner, Norfolk State University.

Mbatiah comes from the University of Nairobi, where he is a senior lecturer in the linguistics and African languages department. Mbatiah’s specialties of Swahili and African literature will serve well as subjects of classes he’ll teach at both TCC and NSU, with an emphasis on African women’s writing.

An expert in Swahili, Mbatiah completed his Ph.D. thesis on The Origin and Development of the Swahili Thesis Novel in Tanzania. His master’s degree also focused on Swahili studies, linguistics and literature. Mbatiah has authored a variety of articles, short stories, a dictionary of Swahili literary terminology and even a Swahili novel, Upotevu .

Mbatiah, Kenyan born and bred, is married and has three children.

To find out more about the new classes, call TCC’s Information Center at 822-1122 or TCC’s Department of International Programs at 822-7296.

Tidewater Community College is the second largest of the 23 community colleges in the Commonwealth of Virginia, enrolling more than 34,000 students annually. The 37th largest in the nation’s 1,600 community-college network, TCC ranks among the 50 fastest-growing large community colleges. Founded in 1968 as a part of the Virginia Community College System, the college serves the South Hampton Roads region with campuses in Chesapeake, Norfolk, Portsmouth and Virginia Beach as well as the TCC Jeanne and George Roper Performing Arts Center in the theater district in downtown Norfolk, the Visual Arts Center in Olde Towne Portsmouth and a regional Advanced Technology Center in Virginia Beach. Forty-three percent of the region’s residents attending a college or university in Virginia last fall were enrolled at TCC.