As a teacher, my first responsibility is self-examination. I listen more than I speak. I read, workshop, and examine my own implicit biases to support others doing the same work. I lead collaboratively, with competence and kindness. Through the practice of reflective pedagogy, I model critical interrogation and empathy to build a classroom culture of belonging. Within this culture of belonging, students in British literature courses read Jamaica Kincaid alongside Geoffrey Chaucer in a shared interrogation of patriarchy and white supremacy. Students in composition courses investigate oppression and inequality, then collaborate to connect these questions to workforce relevance and social problem-solving.
I take reasoned risks because I want to keep surprising myself. Personally, this has meant performing and publishing even before I would consider myself an actor or a writer. Professionally, this means staying current in my field so I keep growing as both educator and scholar. My work as an author and actor builds my ethos as a writing professor; I model effective writing with my own published work, and I demonstrate what it looks like to be vulnerable in public. The instinct to continually ask questions of myself and my discipline informs both my teaching and research. My research on Shakespeare’s intersections with contemporary popular culture, including my current project building a virtual Globe Theatre in Minecraft, springs from the belief that storytelling and performance are living practices that warrant active participation.
The transformative power of community college is why I have a life I love. A first-generation college student who sold my first car to pay for textbooks, I channel my experiences into student advocacy. Attending Northern Virginia Community College immediately after high school marked the first time I felt like I belonged in school. This sense of belonging was built by professors who saw me as a person and shared their humanity with me, and I, in turn, do the same for my students. The transformative power of higher education is why I work in my ideal field, own a home from which I never fear eviction, and realize generational prosperity in sons who are now second-generation college students. To respectfully invoke Black feminist poet Toi Derricotte, “Joy is an act of resistance.” I remain cognizant of my strengths and limitations, and I strive to serve my students, colleagues, and the community well.