I am a recent Ph.D. graduate from the University of Chicago's Divinity School in the area of Literature, Religion, and Visual Culture. I also earned my Master's degree from the University of Chicago and earned my Bachelor's from Western Michigan University in Comparative Religion and English. While I have a wealth of training, development, and mentoring experience from my 17 years of work in retail as a coordinator and manager, my first forays into academic advising and mentoring came when I...
I am a recent Ph.D. graduate from the University of Chicago's Divinity School in the area of Literature, Religion, and Visual Culture. I also earned my Master's degree from the University of Chicago and earned my Bachelor's from Western Michigan University in Comparative Religion and English. While I have a wealth of training, development, and mentoring experience from my 17 years of work in retail as a coordinator and manager, my first forays into academic advising and mentoring came when I worked as a tutor for the Upward Bound program through the University of Chicago’s work-study program. There, I advised students on their English assignments and translated the college essay questions into language and experiences related to the students. For example, one college essay question asked to describe the students’ “American Dream.” As these students experienced a range of obstacles in addition to the usual difficulty of academics—such as homelessness, living in the projects, and facing violence at school—I found helping them articulate what it meant even to have something like an "American Dream" as satisfying as teaching a college course.
While completing my Ph.D., I spent six years working as a tutor and writing instructor for the University of Chicago's Writing Program. As a tutor, I synthesized classroom objectives with the techniques and principles taught by the writing program to ensure students and their essays met the expectations of the course. While working as a writing instructor, I taught incoming freshmen students how to make a clear, persuasive, and compelling argument at the college level while also addressing questions about course material generally. In a more advanced course, I empowered undergraduates and graduate students to improve their written communication by designing reference guides and practice worksheets with revision strategies, organizational techniques, and concept summaries.
I look forward to bringing my teaching and tutoring skills to new students.
