Clinical psychologist Dr. Peggy Cantrell and international musician and composer Dr. Maria Niederberger are the 2007 Notable Women of ETSU.
Both Cantrell and Neiderberger, who hold faculty positions in the ETSU College of Arts and Sciences, will present talks highlighting some of their work and connecting their professional and personal journeys during a 5 p.m. recognition program Wednesday, Nov. 14, in the East Tennessee Room on the third level of the D.P. Culp University Center. A reception will precede the talks at 4:30 p.m., and an open discussion with the honorees and continued refreshments will follow.
Cantrell, who will speak on “Defining Oneself: Lessons from the 4th Grade,” is a professor in the Department of Psychology and recipient of the university’s 2007 Distinguished Faculty Award in Service. Since joining ETSU in 1982, she has consistently provided high levels of service to the university, the surrounding community, and her profession.
As president of the Faculty Senate in 1995, Cantrell worked to generate support for professional development in teaching, played a major role in the establishment of ETSU’s Instructional Development Grants, and was the first chair of the program’s oversight committee.
While interim dean of the ETSU School of Graduate Studies from 1995-98, Cantrell was involved in upgrading and restructuring all staff positions in her unit, developing the electronic application and electronic thesis/dissertation processes, which her successor implemented, and establishing the tuition scholarship program.
Since returning to the classroom in 1998, Cantrell has been working to develop all aspects of ETSU’s doctoral program in clinical psychology, which will welcome its first students in the fall of 2008. “The result,” a colleague says, “is a cutting-edge, model program for the training of clinical psychologists to serve primarily as rural clinicians and researchers in health care settings. Cantrell’s work toward making this program happen reflects over a decade of tremendous but virtually unrecognized service.”
Cantrell is active in her profession as an oral examiner for licensing, a journal reviewer, and an officer in the regional Intermountain Psychological Association. She is on the clinical faculty of the James H. Quillen Veterans Affairs Medical Center’s American Psychological Association-approved psychology internship, which she was instrumental in creating. She has also been active in developing continuing education guidelines for psychologists and upgrading licensing law in the state of Tennessee, as well as serving on a local task force on domestic violence. In addition, she is in demand as a public speaker and frequently addresses a wide variety of topics, including parenting issues, women’s concerns, violence, and mental health in Appalachia.
Cantrell holds a B.S. in psychology from Virginia Commonwealth University and an M.A. in psychology and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Southern Mississippi.
Niederberger, a native of Davos, Switzerland, who immigrated to California in 1975 with her American husband and two children, is an associate professor of theory and musical composition in the Department of Music. She holds a bachelor’s degree in music from the University of California-Davis, where she taught from 1985-99 before joining the ETSU faculty, and a Ph.D. from Brandeis University in Massachusetts. A former board member of the International Alliance for Women in Music (IAWM), she has organized the annual concert at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.
Her compositions “demand musical intuition” and even “virtuosic” ability, therefore appealing to highly skilled performers. Her works have been requested by distinguished international artists and performed at conferences and festivals throughout the United States and Europe.
Niederberger won the IAWM’s international Miriam Gideon Prize in Musical Composition with her song cycle “Full Pockets” for flute, harp and soprano. This work, which depicts scenes of nature, includes her own poetry and that of Jane Kenjon and Pablo Neruda. One of its songs, “Dreaming by the Ocean,” premiered in Lucerne, Switzerland, in a concert sponsored by the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra.
This free public event is sponsored annually by ETSU’s Women’s Studies Program.

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