about me...
I've been teaching at Mesa since 2007 and love my job! I double-majored in political science and french at USF (the University of South Florida in my home town of Tampa), and then made my way to Washington, D.C. to start an MA in International Relations at George Washington University. While working on the degree, I also searched for internships and participated in three over the summer and spring. These experiences helped me realize that I didn't want a career in international relations, so I broadened my job search to include domestic policy jobs. After a year of coursework, unpaid internships, and student loans, I was hired for an entry-level job as a Housing Policy Specialist at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. I knew very little about housing policy when I started the job, but I worked hard, finished the master's program with a focus in public administration, got selected as a Presidential Management Fellow, and learned a ton about how the federal government works. I also learned a lot about myself, including that I was way more distracted than the dedicated bureaucrats with whom I worked by philosophical questions like the nature of democracy, political representation, the administration of law, and freedom. So, after about 5 years, I decided to pursue my passion and managed to get accepted to the graduate program in political theory at Johns Hopkins University (with a letter from Ernesto Laclau for whom I luckily served as research assistant while he was at the Woodrow Wilson Center - one of those "unpaid internships" I stumbled upon....). At JHU, I spent several amazing years reading, listening, discussing, thinking, and writing. Before I completed the PhD in 2004, I also became a wife and mother.
Now I live in Clairemont, ride my ebike to campus, and try to convey that love of learning about our shared world to my students. But it is hard sometimes with the animosity and division that seems to have shrunk that shared world. And so I ask my students to....
Stay Curious,
Reject Cynicism,
and Embrace Generosity.
Something else about me is that I have a lovely family and we like to camp, hike, and travel together. Here we are before a recent rafting trip. I'm the dork in the back with the floppy hat and glasses. Next to me is our illustrious river guide.
And here is our guide falling out of the raft, unbeknownst to us, before the first major rapid. (See his arm and leg to the left?)
And here we are paddling joyfully, waiting for instructions from our guide who is no longer with us. We think we are doing a good job because he has not told us otherwise.....
But we have paddled straight into one of the worst rapids on the river.
Now, I'm airborne, but somehow still remain in the raft.
Meanwhile, my middle child has gone overboard.
Demonstrating the same grace and feet-in-the-air skill that our guide showed a few minutes earlier.
In the end, we all managed to make it back into the boat, complete the river, and even had enough energy for a cheer.
