WELCOME!

Welcome to my tenure portfolio!

It's hard to believe three years have come and gone and the time has come to share my work. I've learned a lot about myself during this time and feel I've grown immensely under the influence of my peers, colleagues, and my students. 

I've often looked back at those teachers, professors, and deans who've walked my journey with me and I'm humbled by the fact that I could be "that person" for someone else...Debbie Buntin, Carolyn Jubb, Patsy Barber, Carol Stigler, Gary Fox, Newton Wilson, Alfred Chestnut, Dr. Yoon, Dr. Jim West...these people, these TEACHERS, were put into my life at pivotal times and played a tremendous role in where I am today. I was that first-generation college student, from a poor, single-parent family. I didn't have the slightest clue about anything related to higher education. I could've never foreseen that I would someday be in the position I'm in, working with the students I work with--many similar to me when I started.

As an educator, I believe that every person has the ability to learn. While students may learn at different paces and may exhibit various learning styles, they all can learn. When I began my teaching career 20 years ago, I tended to view education from the standpoint of “I impart knowledge and my students partake of the knowledge I offer”. That changed for me when, many years ago, I was in a seminar by Skip Downing where he defined education using the Latin root of the word meaning “to draw out”. I, then, began to realize that my job as an educator was actually very different from what I had believed it to be for so long. My task as an educator is not to be the “sage on the stage”, so to speak, but rather to be a facilitator of the learning process so that the content has meaning to the learners for where they are right now and where they hope to be in the future. Through my interactions with my students I hope to impart to them that learning doesn’t stop once you leave the classroom or the campus; it is a lifelong process. Their role is to be an active part of that process—taking from each setting, whether in the classroom or not, what they need to in order to be ready for whatever comes next.

I'm thankful I've been called to teach.