The Noble Fellowship

The Noble Fellowship, an endowed fellowship at Queens University of Charlotte, was made possible through the generosity of Dr. Jerry H. Greenhoot and the late Dr. Kathryn W. Greenhoot. The program is named for Noble Hines, whose life and values expressed the concept of “paying it forward” long before it was defined elsewhere. His contributions were multiplied by the lives he influenced well beyond those people he knew or intended to assist. In gratitude and recognition of Noble Hines’ gifts, the Greenhoots created the Noble Fellowship, a scholarship dedicated to continuing excellence and academic growth for upperclassmen and faculty at Queens.

In several ways, the Fellowship is unique in that it acts as an enabling stipend to allow the pursuit of a specific project. The Noble Fellowship is entirely merit-based and is neither a reward nor recognition of past achievement but is given in anticipation of work to come. The potential academic projects are completely up to the individual and are countless.

The Goal

The goal of the Noble Fellowship is to encourage and mentor students and faculty as they prepare for a lifetime of creative and generous work. The Fellowship consists of individuals who demonstrate merit in their lives and their scholarship and anticipate lifelong contributions to the arts, science, teaching, or public service. Fellows are chosen from people of the highest intellectual curiosity, character, depth, and breadth of thought, as well as life interests.

Characteristics of a Noble Fellow

• Demonstrates commitment and capability in his/her chosen academic field.
• Demonstrates potential for leadership, intellectual aptitude, and scholarly achievement at Queens or to the greater community.
• Owns a desire to initiate and complete a specific academic project which requires funding.
• Displays upstanding moral character, absolute integrity, and intellectual honesty.
• Owns a broad “worldview” extending beyond themselves. A Fellow is to be a “Soul of Honor.”
• Demonstrates potential for future offerings to, the Fellowship program, the University, and American society.
• Demonstrates willingness to accept the lifetime commitment and obligations of the Fellowship, as well as its rewards.

“As a faculty Noble fellow, I will serve with honor and dedication, and look forward to fostering a fellowship of student and faculty scholars at Queens. I will mentor student fellows, seeking ways to present experiences that will challenge and prepare them for the future, in a manner reminiscent of how Noble Hines encouraged and inspired Drs. Jerry H. and Kathryn W. Greenhoot. I will commit myself to scholarship on creative literacy and its educational impact in crafting noble citizens for this world.”

Professor Siu Challons-Lipton

Noble Fellows at Queens

John Bennett, Faculty Fellow, Professor of Business

Academic Project: Dr. Bennett will conduct research studying the influence of lived experience on the work of award-winning professional chefs, which will build on his previous research conducted in the context of scholar-practitioners in the field of organization development. This will result in a peer-reviewed journal manuscript. He is currently entering this work intending to produce a book manuscript.

Faculty Fellow John Bennett Publishes New Book
Congratulations to current Faculty Noble Fellow Dr. John Bennett on his latest book release. The Manager’s Guide to Coaching for Change, which focuses on the foundation of coaching; the process of change coaching; 6 essential coaching skills; how to coach across differences; specialty coaching; ethical considerations; and continuous development, is available at degruyter.com.

Luke Haefner ‘25, Fellow

Academic Project: This project intends to use research to inform the creation of art that will drive further discussion about an urgent and important topic—mass incarceration in the United States. Haefner proposes to do this through a musical composition, a string quartet with electronics, drawing on interviews with several justice-involved individuals to create a single cohesive narrative. The work will be performed and recorded by the Bechtler Ensemble at the Freedom Fighting Missionaries 2025 Annual Gala. Through this performance, the project aims to open a wider dialogue about mass incarceration and how it affects those in our immediate communities.

Kellie A. Williams ’25, Fellow

Academic Project: Kellie’s Noble fellowship research explores a narrow genre of music within the African-American church experience which was integral to the birth of gospel. She will research, analyze, record, and collect what is known as the “Note” or “Hymn” choir music, and explain its historical relevance, importance, and symbolism within the larger genre of Black Sacred music. She will seek to show how that tradition enriches worship and that it should be preserved in history as a legacy of the African-American musical experience – which goes across many Protestant denominations from Baptist to Presbyterian, Methodist to Episcopalian. Wherever there is a Black community in the Christian church, you will find the existence of a rich legacy of African-American music. Kellie is focused on unpacking this legacy through researching, educating, showcasing, and sharing so that the world may come to appreciate and know the beauty, meaning, and love expressed by this genre of music as a gift to all music everywhere.

Jennifer Piazza-Pick, Faculty Fellow, Assistant Professor of Music

Academic Project: As a Noble Fellow, Dr. Piazza-Pick will embark on a project to record a second album that showcases women composers in classical music with her soprano and clarinet duo, Whistling Hens. Whistling Hens is a chamber music ensemble that was founded by Dr. Piazza-Pick and clarinetist Natalie Groom to combat the inequity female composers face in the arts by performing, commissioning, and recording music by women. Women composers are disturbingly underrepresented in programming, unrecorded in professional settings, and unacknowledged on the global stage for their excellence which has led to centuries of economic, academic, and networking disparities compared to their male peers.

Siu Challons-Lipton, Faculty Fellow, Professor of Art History and Arts Leadership

Academic Project: Dr. Challons-Lipton explored creative literacy. Most institutions of higher education teach and assess verbal, quantitative, and information literacy, but little attention is devoted to creative literacy. To address this dearth, she introduced a class at Queens in Creative Literacy that facilitated the development of skills to become creative thinkers in a Conceptual World. Students were trained in creative literacy, a language that connects cultures and ideas, helping them recognize, interpret, and critically analyze cultural references through the arts. Dr. Challons-Lipton conducted archival research on the subject, supplemented by interviews, observations, and teaching.

Kira McIntire, Faculty Fellow, Assistant Professor of Biology

Academic Project: Dr. McEntire studied the impact of disturbance on parental care of marbled salamanders and nest abandonment. Marbled salamanders will often stay with their nests until the eggs hatch. However, little is known about why some nests get abandoned. Dr. McEntire searched for salamander nests to monitor abandonment rates and see if a disturbance was a trigger for abandonment. Dr. McEntire continues this research and has expanded it to other projects with marbled salamanders.

Noble Fellows Newsletter

Learn More

To inquire and learn more about the Noble Fellowship, please contact Ginger Marr (marrg@queens.edu, 704-337-2444).