Westmont Magazine New Faculty Faces

An instructor at Westmont since 1991, Susan Savage has become a full-time assistant professor of art. She received her master’s degree in fine art from UCSB. Before coming to Westmont, she taught art and crafts at Santa Barbara Christian School, La Colina Junior High, and City College’s Adult Education program. She has shown her own work extensively and done free-lance illustration and design.

Tremper Longman III, professor of religious studies, received a B.A. in religion at Ohio Wesleyan University, an M.Div. from Westminster Theological Seminary, and an M.Phil. and a Ph.D. from Yale University. He has taught at Westminster Theological Seminary since 1981, and served as chair of the Old Testament department since 1993. He has also been a guest professor at several schools, including the International Graduate School in Theology in Seoul, South Korea (1986); Reformed Theological Seminary (1990); and Fuller Theological Seminary (1997).

Thomas G. Fikes, assistant professor of psychology, received a B.A. in psychology, cum laude, from California State University, Fresno, and earned a Ph.D. in psychology with an emphasis in human information processing from UCSB. Fikes served as assistant professor of psychology at the University of Puget Sound (1993-present), as a lecturer in psychology at Westmont (1989-1993), and as a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute of Health Traineeship in Mathematical Modeling at Indiana University (1993-1994).

James Marcum, associate professor of biology, holds Ph.D.s in physiology (University of Cincinnati College of Medicine) and philosophy (Boston College), as well as masters in zoology (Miami University, Oxford, Ohio) and theology (Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary). He received his bachelor’s degree in biology from Miami University. Marcum has been professor of biology at Houghton College in New York and director of the Houghton Institute for Integrative Studies since 1995. He was an instructor and assistant professor of pathology at Harvard Medical School from 1984-93.