Focus
Kirstin L. Squint
Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences Associate professor of English and Whichard Distinguished Professor
An expert in Native American literature, Kirstin L. Squint is the David Julian and Virginia Suther Whichard Distinguished Professor in the Humanities in English and Gender Studies at East Carolina University. She came to Greenville in 2019 from High Point University, where she had been an associate professor of English. Housed within the Thomas Harriot College of Arts and Sciences, the professorship was established in the mid-1990s by family members of the late David Julian Whichard, a 60-year editor and publisher of Greenville’s The Daily Reflector, and his wife, Virginia Suther Whichard, a former schoolteacher and 1917 graduate of what was then East Carolina Teachers Training School. Due to the Whichard family’s generosity, Squint, like many distinguished professors before her, has benefited greatly in her research and teaching, and she has made an impact on ECU and the Greenville community. “I have had the opportunity to invite nationally and internationally known writers and speakers to ECU, including Monique Truong, Annette Clapsaddle, Cathleen Cahill, LeAnne Howe, Red Justice podcast hosts Brittany Hunt and Chelsea Locklear, and U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo,” Squint said. “These speakers have shared their work through readings and lectures, visited classes and engaged with the Greenville community at public events.” In addition, Squint said the philanthropy of the Whichard family gave her time and resources to finish two scholarly collections and hire an English graduate student research assistant, who helped her transcribe interviews for Conversations with LeAnne Howe and helped with preliminary research on her in-progress monograph, Troubled Waters in Contemporary Southern Narratives. Squint’s position as distinguished professor ends this summer, but she will remain at ECU. Since last August, Squint has held the position of Native American literature specialist in the Department of English’s multicultural and transnational literature concentration. “I was very thankful for the opportunity to join the English faculty since I have had such a positive experience at ECU,” she said. – Lacey L. Gray
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East magazine
summer 2022
