Liberal Arts Faculty

Elizabeth Hoag

Title Senior Professor of Practice
Department Liberal Arts
Phone 216.421.7000

• Contact

Degree PhD Candidate (ABD), The University at Albany, SUNY
MA, University of Cincinnati
BA, Ithaca College

Elizabeth Hoag, RPA, is an archaeologist and anthropologist with over 20 years of professional and teaching experience. Her current research interests include gender and motherhood experiences in the field of archaeology, and pedagogy and best practices for teaching hands-on curriculum in the natural and social sciences. Elizabeth the President-Elect of the Ohio Archaeological Council, and a board member of the Cleveland Archaeological Society.

At CIA she teaches a variety of social and natural science elective classes on topics including gender, urban anthropology, human evolution, and the history and cultures of Indigenous peoples in the New World.

Degree BA, English, Hiram College

SCOTT LAX is an award-winning novelist, journalist, and filmmaker, as well as a produced playwright. He works full time as a Senior Professor of Practice in Creative Writing at the Cleveland Institute of Art College of Art + Design, where he is in his ninth year of teaching. Scott graduated from Hiram College in English and studied Shakespeare's History Plays at the University of Cambridge, England. He has presented for dozens of schools, libraries, and organizations. He has also taught fiction as a faculty member at Hiram College, where he taught fiction, as well as the Western Reserve Writers Conference in Ohio, at the Wildacres Writers Workshop in North Carolina, and at the South Carolina Writers Conference.

Scott is a recipient of the 1993 Bread Loaf Writers' Conference Bernard J. O'Keefe Scholarship in Nonfiction, and the 1998 Sewanee Writers Conference Walter E. Dakin Fellowship in Fiction. Scott received a Certificate of Congratulations from the City of Cleveland for his body of work in 2001, and in 2016 was inducted into the Chagrin Falls High School Achievement Hall of Fame as a member of the Class of 1970.

The Denver Post wrote of Scott's first novel, The Year That Trembled, "A powerful coming-of-age story… captures the mood of the era and tells a strong tale of love, brotherly and otherwise," and named it one of 1998's "milestones in fiction," alongside such authors as Philip Roth, Alice Walker, Stephen King, Barbara Kingsolver, and Tim O'Brien. In 2002, Scott and Tyler Davidson produced the feature film version of The Year That Trembled, directed by Jay Craven, for which they were named Midwest Filmmakers of the Year by the 2002 Cleveland International Film Festival, in addition to three other film festival first-place awards.

Scott's second novel, Vengeance Follows, was called "A minor masterpiece of suspense and human nature," by the Midwest Book Review.

Scott adapted The Year That Trembled first as a high school play, which was produced at University School in 2003 and 2013. During the pandemic, Scott rewrote the play for community and professional theatres and retitled it 1970, which made its successful World Premiere at the Chagrin Valley Little Theatre, directed by Brian Westerley over two weekends and six shows, including a 250-seat, sold-out final Saturday night performance.

A member of the Authors Guild and the Dramatists Guild, Scott is also a professional drummer who has performed with many musicians around the country, including Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Bo Diddley. Scott Lives in the Chagrin Valley in Ohio with his wife and son.

– March 2024

Degree MFA, Columbia University
BA, University of Notre Dame