My teaching philosophy centers on students mastering the course material, developing problem-solving and critical thinking skills, developing of research and writing skills, and engaging thoughtfully and rationally to a wide range of ideas. I hold an undergraduate degree in education and am an experienced educator with thirteen years of undergraduate teaching experience and eighteen years of teaching experience total. I have experience working in a variety of universities including rural community colleges, state colleges, and R1 research institutions. I have served as the instructor-of-record for twelve courses in art, art history, and gender studies. Most recently, I have developed two highly interdisciplinary courses in gender studies and visual culture for the University of Kansas: Sex, Gender, and New Media and Feminist and LGBT+ Art History. I have redesigned these and continue to teach them at Bucknell University. I am a passionate educator and enjoy designing and teaching survey, as well as highly specific classes.

            My goal for students is to comprehend and apply the main points from each course thoughtfully and creatively to a number of situations inside and outside the course. Course texts should be understood as ideas to engage with and not facts to memorize. My aim is to make my classroom an open environment where students feel safe asking questions and interrogating the material. I encourage this environment by clearly stating expectations around assignments and readings, providing guiding questions for the readings, and patterning different ways to interrogate the concepts in each text. I center the analysis of primary source texts whenever possible in each unit. In assessments, students should demonstrate an understanding of main concepts and key figures from each unit while being able to discuss larger themes in a creative way through well-constructed arguments.

            Problem-solving and critical thinking skills benefit students in their studies and in the job force. I develop these skills by providing the students texts and other resources that express a range of sometimes conflicting approaches to the same concept. I utilize close-reading and note-taking strategies to teach students to identify the main arguments and examples in each text. By the end of courses, students should be able to compare and contrast texts based on key concepts and main arguments. I include workshops on writing and research to aid students in learning important scholarly skills like composing a strong essay, constructing an argument, and finding and citing key sources to support their arguments. As students progress through the program, they will be expected to develop more complex papers that engage with a variety of scholarly sources.

            It is key for students to approach new concepts with an open mind. At the beginning of each course, I provide students with an overview of the course and expectations around the material. I explain that students will be exposed to a range of materials. The goal for the students is to think about and engage with these ideas critically. They are not required to agree with or support the ideas. When engaging with texts in the course, I encourage students to use examples from the text to argue their points, as opposed to more personal examples that may be inflammatory. My goal is for the classroom to be an open and engaging environment, while also being safe and respectful for all students involved. 

             My goal as an educator is to provide the best instruction through appropriate methods, resources, and assessments. I am a highly reflexive teacher who takes note of all student and administrator feedback to reflect on and update my courses each semester. For all assignments I provide written and oral instructions so that students know my expectations. Example assignments and grading rubrics are provided for major assignments. I set a positive tone for the classroom by addressing students with their chosen pronouns and name. I provide one-on-one feedback through verbal meetings and in writing so that students know their progress in the course including how they are succeeding and places for improvement.

            I am committed in promoting diversity and inclusion in academia through my individual classroom curriculum and by serving on committees that support diversity and inclusion university-wide. Coming from a background in Women, Gender, and Sexuality studies, I believe that knowledge production and is an act of power and privilege. I create diverse and inclusive syllabi so that students are exposed to a wide range of voices and ideas. When possible, I shift chronological curriculum to theme-based so that texts by Western, male voices are more balanced with those of women, LGBT+ individuals, and people of color.

            During the pandemic, all of our skills as educators have been tested. I continue to participate in pedagogical trainings that address topics such as teaching online, diversifying syllabi, and new approaches to curriculum organization. I currently serve in two departmental curriculum committees at the University of Kansas whose goal is to clarify past courses and make syllabi more diverse. As part of these committees, I not only improved specific syllabi but also worked with the committee to restructure our core curriculum as a whole to create more horizontal alignment between courses, as well as ensuring that the courses as a unit centered key goals of the department such as activism, intersectionality, and feminist ethics. I will bring the same rigorous approach to my assigned courses, as well as to departmental pedological planning in your department.