Below is a list of faculty that are active in the department, and available to students with course specific questions. If you need administrative support, we encourage you to refer your questions to one of the following;
- The Chair of the department can address detailed program questions, including program requirements, planning and selection, research opportunities, graduate studies, and more.
- The Academic Advisor, if available, can offer support including course registration and course load, important dates, academic policies and more.
- The Academic Deans serve as the academic and administrative anchors to the professors within their Faculties or Schools as well as the students.
Faculty of the Arts Administration Department:
Dr. Ross Osmun
Arts Administration Chairperson
Full Professor – Music Department (Theory, Piano)
Originally from Windsor Ontario, Ross Osmun holds degrees from the University of Windsor, Royal Conservatory of Music and the prestigious Eastman School of Music. His principal teachers were Dr. E. G. Butler (Windsor) and Professor Barry Snyder. (Eastman) He has performed nationally as recitalist, accompanist and chamber musician with important debuts in Calgary, Banff, Regina, Winnipeg, Thunder Bay, Toronto, Quebec City and Charlottetown. International engagements include those in the United States (Detroit, Ann Arbor, Washington D.C., Eugene Oregon and New York City) as well as those in France, Serbia, Germany, Austria and Russia.
Esther Charron
Assistant Professor
Professor Esther Charron lives and works in symbiosis with her passion for the arts. She takes great pleasure in collaborating with people and taking up new challenges in varied settings.
Curious, dynamic and versatile, she contributed to the development of numerous artistic companies for many years: she helped them with their strategic planning; she assisted them with communication and marketing needs; she gave guidance during international collaborations, etc. She also took on production management, many research and studies for Québec and Canadian institutions, and organized, moderated and gave conferences as well as training sessions all over the world.
Faculty from Other Academic Departments
Dr. James Benson
Full Professor – Department of Fine Arts
Dr. Benson is Full Professor in the Fine Arts Department, where he teaches primarily sculpture and drawing. He earned a BFA in Art Education (1975), a Diploma in Art Education (1979), and an MFA (1979) in sculpture from Concordia University. He came to teach at Bishop’s in 1979. After a period of teaching he returned to Concordia and earned a PhD in Art Education (1999). His interests are in both creative work in studio and scholarly activity in art education. Dr. Benson exhibits his work in galleries locally, nationally, and internationally.
Dr. Mathieu Désy
Associate Professor (Double Bass, Theory, Recording Technology), Director of Jazz/Pop/Rock Ensembles
Dr. Désy earned his B.Mus. and M.Mus. degrees from the Conservatoire de Montréal and holds the distinction as “Canada’s First Doctor of Classical Double Bass Performance” from the Université de Montréal. He is equally versatile on the electric bass, and is capable of moving seamlessly between the genres of classical, jazz and popular music. His is a prolific composer and arranger in virtually all domains of music.
Numerous grants and awards have facilitated Dr. Désy’s keen interest in scholarship which now includes the publication of his book entitled Glow in the Dark: Incandescent Songs for Polyphonic Bass in addition to past conference presentations at the International Society of Bassists in the United States.
As a collaborative artist, Dr. Désy has been involved in over 50 distributed albums covering all genres of music and he has toured with many of Quebec’s elite singer-songwriters and performers. He can also be credited with several stage, television and radio productions. As the co-owner of Studio Makina in Montreal and as a “Producer of the Year” award nominee for his work on Martin Lizotte’s award-winning album Ubiquité, Dr. Désy brings to Bishop’s a wealth of knowledge and experience in the areas of sound technology and production. He has produced several albums and film scores to critical acclaim.
Dr. Désy’s impressive breadth of teaching experience includes past positions at UQÀM, the Conservatoire de Montréal, the Cégep de Saint-Laurent and Sherbrooke, École Mitchell-Montcalm as well as a recent artist-in-residence position at the Banff Centre.
Mark Gandey
Lecturer
Mark Gandey (B.U. finance, 1989) worked as an accountant for 17 years (Gillette, Air Montreal and Stikeman Elliott) while first earning a C.M.A (Concordia), a M.B.A. (U.Q.O.) followed by a graduate diploma in Instructional Technology (Concordia) prior to lecturing at the Williams School of Business in Managerial Accounting.
Dr. Rebecca Harries
Full Professor – Department of Drama
Full Professor, PhD, current Chair of the Drama Department and Chair from 2009-2013, she is currently a member of the Canadian Association for Theatre Research and a negotiator and grievance officer for the Union, she has been committed to integrating the study and practice of performance with real-world challenges.
Steven Woodward
Full Professor – Department of English
Dr. Steven Woodward is a full professor in the English Department. He has wide-ranging interests in the areas of film and media studies. He grew up in England, fully expecting to become a secret agent as an adult, but the closest he’s come to that is publishing an article on villains in the James Bond movies. After studying at Queen’s University, Ryerson University, and the University of Toronto, he taught at Nipissing University, the University of Toronto, and Clemson University (South Carolina).