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"Learning without thinking is labor lost;

thinking without learning is dangerous."

--Confucius

Literature Classes

Classes 

Debate
Public Speaking

About Me 

Background and Education

 My Curriculum Vitae (Updated 2024)

 

     Born and raised in Anderson, Indiana, I attended Purdue University and studied abroad at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland.  Upon graduating, I moved to Illinois to begin my teaching career at Edwardsville High School in 2003.  

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     In 2008, I earned a master's in Education from Washington University in St. Louis and completed a master's in American Culture Studies there in 2019.

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     Some of my most rewarding professional experiences include: my work as a fellow in the 2011 Piasa Bluffs Writing Institute (sponsored by the National Writing Project); being a Group Study Exchange member to Sweden for a month in 2012 (sponsored by Rotary International); and participating in four different teacher workshops and two teacher institutes sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities. My most recent NEH experience was spending three weeks this past summer studying the Gilded Age and Progressive Era at Loyola University in Chicago.

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   During the 2018 summer, I participated in teacher institutes at Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia, the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington D.C., and with the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library in Chicago.

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  I have been an official volunteer with the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library in Indianapolis since 2019, and in 2021, I coordinated and moderated a webinar, Part II of their three-part "Mississippi River Trilogy" exploring life and culture historically and geographically along the Mississippi River.  That same summer I ran a two-hour teacher workshop. 

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  In 2022, I was a fellow at the Gilder-Lehrman summer seminar hosted by the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.  

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     I love to read, watch movies, spend time with friends and family, and travel. 

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Check out my blog from traveling to Sweden for a month in 2012 via the Rotary's Group Study Exchange Program:

Sweden Blog

 

 

Extra Curricular Activities

 

  I am the sponsor for Debate Club, Ethics Bowl, Film Society, and Poetry Out Loud.

 

  Please click on the following links to find out more.

 

Debate Club (and Ethics Bowl)

Film Society

Poetry Out Loud

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Extra Curriculars 

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