It was in 5th grade that I met one of the most influential people in my life--my teacher that year, Mrs. Smith (in a picture here taken at the Straits of Gibraltar separating Spain and Morocco).  From her I developed a sense of adventure and a love of travel.  Though she was widowed at a very young age, during a time in our society when a woman alone was expected to live a quiet, sedate life, she broke with convention and instead traveled all over the world until shortly before her death in 2003--to China, to the Soviet Union before the end of the Cold War, and to the Amazon region of South America just to name a few--and she even applied to be the first teacher in space aboard the Challenger space shuttle.  One of the highlights of my life was having the opportunity in spring 2006 to travel for a month with a Rotary International Group Study Exchange (GSE) team throughout the Czech Republic and Slovakia.  After the trip ended, I had the opportunity to travel on my own through Poland, Austria, France, Italy, Greece, Germany, and Switzerland for another couple of months.  A more recent highlight in my life is the opportunity I have had for two consecutive summers to be a part of the Korean Studies Summer Program (KSSP) at Hannam University in Daejeon, Korea.  In addition to the pictures already on the website, here are pictures from some of my other favorite travel destinations.   

I always loved the mountains as a kid, and my family and I visited from time to time.  For my fourth birthday my family and I spent part of our vacation in Asheville.  One of my favorite TV shows growing up was “The Adventures of Grizzly Adams”--I know I’m an old timer, so in case you’ve never seen the show, it’s the story of a man falsely accused of a crime who has to go into hiding in the mountains.  Here’s a link to the show’s opening theme.  I thought there couldn’t be anything better in life than to live on top of a mountain with a bear as a companion.  Actually that’s pretty much what’s happened; I do live on top of a mountain now, and a bear comes by to visit every fall and spring.  It took a few years, but I’ve finally seen a few in person, walking along the side of the roads near my home.   

I first came to live in the mountains for an extended period of time when I started college at UNC-Asheville.    I was A LOT less enthusiastic about Asheville and the mountains when it came time to move 250 miles away from home than I had been as a kid.  My first year in college was one of the worst in my life.  I was terribly homesick and seriously considered dropping out of school more times than I can remember (let me see…there are how many days in one academic year?).  But I was blessed to meet some wonderful, supportive friends who, along with some very understanding and inspiring faculty members, helped me find my way in the world.  By my sophomore year, I embraced college life and grew to love my new community.  I graduated in 1993 with a degree in political science.  The next year, I completed the requirements for a double major in sociology with a focus on criminology.  My experiences in college have shaped in so many ways my approach to teaching, as I discuss below.       

If you’ve never been to a UT football game, it’s truly an experience you shouldn’t miss.  I’m not even a huge football fan--I grew up on ACC basketball myself (as odd as this will sound to diehard ACC fans, Duke and Carolina are my two favorite teams)--but even I will be the first to admit that being in Neyland Stadium on a football Saturday is like no other experience.  Get ready for A LOT of orange, the best tailgating in the world, and hearing “Rocky Top” so much it will be stuck in your head for days.                  

When I finished at UT, I knew I wanted to settle permanently in the Asheville area.  I graduated in May of 2002 and moved back that August.  I have been teaching at Western since the fall of 2002.  I’ve taught a number of different courses over the last few years, but my favorites are Latin American Politics, Gender in Politics, the core American Government class in the program, and my all time favorite course--Public Affairs Administration in the Masters of Public Affairs program.  In fairness to any prospective or current students who may be reading this, I feel that I should warn you of one thing about myself--I am not a morning person!!!, but I try to make the best of it.  I have, wear, and LOVE a pair of “Grumpy” (from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) bedroom slippers that I got for Christmas a few years ago.  In fall of 2008 I was named Assistant Director in the Office of International Programs and Services.  I took my first international trip in my mid teens and I've been blessed over the years to have been able to travel to a number of different countries:  France; Germany; Switzerland; the Czech Republic; Slovakia; Poland; Austria; Italy; Greece; the Netherlands; Wales; England; Japan; Korea; and Denmark.  Where else do I want to go?  Spin a globe and pretty much stop it anywhere, and that's a place I want to explore too.            

I often have students ask me how I got interested in political science.  I truly don’t remember a time when I wasn’t at least aware of what was going on in politics.  My first political memory (it was a few days after my 3rd birthday) was of Richard Nixon’s resignation as a result of Watergate.  Obviously, my memories from that period are not very “scholarly” shall we say, but we all have to start some place, right?  In my 3-year old head what stuck out for me was that the “funny looking man with the big head” raised his arms, made the “Victory” symbol with his fingers, and then my parents decided we could FINALLY, FINALLY, FINALLY leave for vacation.  (My parents had delayed the trip for several days until everything was officially resolved.  You can imagine how well that went over with a 3 and 6 year old!) Beyond the Nixon resignation, I also don’t remember a time when I wasn’t fascinated by JFK.  Even before I could read, I knew which book on the shelf at home chronicled his assassination--it’s a book called Four Days.  I’d crawl up on the shelf, pull the book down and look at all the pictures--don’t worry, there wasn’t anything gory in it.  I’d do the same thing at the local library--pull out all the Kennedy books I knew had pictures in them and entertain myself while my brother found books he wanted to check out.  Once I learned to read, I read books on Kennedy, then on Johnson, then Nixon, then Eisenhower, etc., and before I knew it, I had a Ph.D. in political science.  Okay, that’s not exactly true; I’m leaving out the blood, sweat and tears I shed to get to that last part! 

Here's a picture of "the book that started it all...."  The book on the right in the picture is a Dutch version of the same book, which I found a couple of years ago in a secondhand market in Middelburg, the Netherlands when I was there for a board meeting at the Middelburg Center for Transatlantic Studies.  Through WCU's Study Abroad program, for several years Western students were able to study there alongside Dutch and other European students as well as students from Mexico and other countries, and Western faculty members were able to teach courses there on a regular basis.

Approach to Teaching

My college experience shaped me in a number of different ways.

First, it was because of the faculty members that I knew as an undergraduate that I was inspired to earn my doctorate and teach on the university level.  I was awed by the way they could mold students’ minds--to get us to think for ourselves, to ask the right questions, and to inspire us to play a role in solving the problems we observed. 

Second, I think it was in large part because of the really awful first year I experienced in college that I tend to relate so well to my students.  With students of any level, but particularly with freshmen who are having a difficult time making the transition to a new way of life, I truly understand what they’re going through.  A couple of the really important ideas that shape my view towards life are that everything happens for a reason, and that for every good thing or act of kindness that comes into my life, I have an obligation to pass that on to others.  Because of the challenges I faced as a student and as an individual, I hopefully know how to make similar situations easier for others to deal with, and because my undergraduate professors showed such a commitment to helping me in any way they could, I feel both a desire and an obligation to serve my students in the same way. 

And finally, because of one of the most important lessons that my professors ever taught me--that I have not only a right but a responsibility to make my voice heard on important matters--I have developed a strong commitment over the years to helping students develop not only their own senses of self, but at the same time trying to instill in them a sense of responsibility to give back something to the communities of which they are or will soon be a part.  This last point is probably best exemplified by my incorporation of Service Learning in a number of my classes over the years.