General Education Committee People

Born and raised in Ukraine, Dr. Nazarenko joined Westmont College as Dean of Curriculum and Educational Effectiveness in 2010. She chairs the PRC and works with all academic and co-curriculum departments on issues pertaining to curriculum development, outcome-based learning, student-centered teaching, and assessment. She did her undergraduate and graduate work at the Kyiv State University and also Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and Culture at the University of Alberta and master's in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Washington. Her current research interests include assessing and promoting student success in various educational contexts.

Dr. Jana Mayfield Mullen joined the Westmont faculty in 2001 as an adjunct professor in the history and religious studies departments. She taught Renaissance and Reformation history, cultural geography, North American religions, and HIS-010: World History, a Common Core GE course. Since 2013 she has served as a Westmont librarian, providing information literacy instruction, research guidance, and collection development for several academic departments. In 2020 she became Director of the Voskuyl Library.  She received a Master of Divinity from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and a PhD with a concentration in 19th-century American religious history from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Her master’s in library and information science was granted by the University of Kentucky in 2012.  She has served several terms on the GE Committee as library representative since 2015. 

Dr. Telford Work is a professor of theology at Westmont College. He has taught theology and related disciplines on five continents. He is the author of Jesus—The End of the Beginning: Tracing the Christ-Shaped Nature of Everything, the Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible: Deuteronomy, Ain’t Too Proud to Beg: Living through the Lord’s Prayer, and Living and Active: Scripture in the Economy of Salvation. He is also a contributor and signatory of In One Body through the Cross: the Princeton Proposal for Christian Unity. His Ph.D. in religion (theology and ethics) is from Duke University. He also holds an M.A. in theological and biblical studies from Fuller Theological Seminary and a B.A. in political science from Stanford University. Dr. Work is elected to a term ending in Spring 2026.

Heather Keaney is Professor of History at Westmont College.  She graduated from Westmont College and received a PhD in Middle East History from the University of California at Santa Barbara.  She specializes in debates on religio-political legitimacy in Islamic history and historiography.  She has published two books on this topic.  In recent years her scholarly work focuses on developing role play games for use in courses addressing Middle East history.  

Michelle Hardley is a Westmont alum who joined the staff at Westmont College in 2000 as the Psychology lab coordinator (2000-2002) and adjunct instructor (2002-2011) in the Psychology department. From 2004-2011 she served as the Director of Academic Advising and Disability Services, where each year she advised hundreds of students as they sought to determine their academic major and vocational interests as well as coordinated academic accommodations for students each term. Since 2012 she has served as the Registrar, overseeing the Student Records Office in the collection, storage, maintenance and dissemination of student records data. In that time she has guided the department through two different system database conversions, most recently in 2024. She has a M.S. in Counseling and Guidance from California Lutheran University and is a standing member of the GE Committee. 

Professor Russell C. Smelley began his tenure in the Kinesiology Department at Westmont in 1979. He is a tenured Professor in the Kinesiology Department which includes duties as the head coach for men’s and women’s Cross Country and Track & Field in the Athletics Department. His primary classroom teaching responsibilities have been in the areas of pedagogy, health, student internships, and physical activity. His special interest is in the philosophy of coaching and promoting the ideals of being a transformational teacher and coach. His coaching/teaching philosophy emphasizes developing the potential of each classroom and team participant academically, athletically, socially and spiritually as learners and strivers seeking to consistently do their best work.

Prior to Westmont, Smelley attended the University of Richmond in Virginia where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in English and Physical Education and acquired his teaching credential in English, PE, speech and health. He continued directly from student teaching to being a physical education graduate teaching assistant while earning his MEd in Education at UR. During these two years of academic work, he served as the Spiders’ first head coach for women’s Cross Country and Track & Field and as an assistant men’s coach. He also competed on two USA Track & Field teams as he continued to train and compete during graduate school.