1) Tell us a little about your background and teaching experience, as well as your personal teaching philosophy.
I've taught adjunct for VCU, Richard Bland, John Tyler, and for a couple of for-profit private institutions before gravitating towards JSR. I'm not sure that I developed a philosophy during that time, but I've developed a few guiding principles. I make it a point to treat young students like adults in terms of carrying their responsibilities -- because how else are they going to learn to bear a burden? I act as though all my students are interested in becoming scholars and writers, even when I suspect they are not. I try to teach lessons that are just barely over their heads, because a thing you have to work to master is more stimulating than a thing you succeed at effortlessly. I guess among English professors, it's not too pretentious to quote Browning. "A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a Heaven for?"
2) Obviously you've been at Reynolds as an adjunct for several years--tell us what drew you here and what you like about the Reynolds community.
I liked the amount of support and advice the full-timers at JSRCC were always willing to offer. I like the diversity of our student body, in terms of age, life experience, and nationality.
3) How is the transition from adjunct to full time progressing? Any major differences that you've noticed thus far? What advice would you have for adjuncts on the lookout for a full time teaching job?
This semester, over the course of the weekend before school started, I went from teaching 12 to teaching 18 credits. This is my first semester doing LCs and my first semester teaching SDV courses and I'm doing 3 of each of those. It's a challenging semester and that's even before I get involved with committees, etc -- but that's not a complaint. To adjuncts seeking full-time employment, I recommend that you get involved with out-of-class activities. Join committees. Attend department meetings. Present a paper at the faculty Research Symposium. Let people get to know your name and face. If someone asks you if you're an expert on graphic novels, say, "I can become one by the time I have to give a presentation".
4)What are your professional interests as far as pedagogy, discipline-specific info, genres, time periods etc.? How are you able to pull some of those interests into your classroom? What do you look forward to contributing to our English Department?
As far as pedagogy, I think my love of freewriting and peer reviews makes me an Elbownian with regard to my writing classes. In English 112, I'm focused on applying classical rhetoric and critical reading to modern media by way of advertising and political discourse. Literarily, I'm most interested in myth and medival lit (I want to develop a Special Topics course in this area). I usually jam a unit on the Pulp writers, along with a question of "What is High and Low Art?" into my 242 classes.
5) Give our readers one interesting fact about yourself--outside of the realm of school.
I try to get my fingers into a lot of artistic pies: theatre, film (screenwriting and acting), short stories, and am just starting to cut my teeth on scripting a graphic novel (based on Indian mythology). I recently played a screenwriter/serial killer in the local indy/horror flick _Lights, Camera, Dead_(The title was not my idea).
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