Faculty Profile

Department: Clark Honors College

Hometown: Pasadena, Calif.

Song on Repeat: “You Are My Sunshine”

Guilty Pleasure: Lying in a raft tied up to a river bank

Favorite Movie: The Fall; close seconds, Amacord and Accepted

Coffee or Tea: Iced coffee

Why I teach at the CHC: It lets me be whole, all the parts of my intellectual, spiritual, and emotional being that go into how I wish to contribute what is in me to our next generation leaders on whom our world depends. With my background in literary criticism, women's studies, American Studies, international education, chaos theory, leadership studies, poetry, drama, the intersection of emergent and ancient science and literature, and other fields, in what department would I fit? Yet in the Clark Honors College, it all comes together in encouragement and respect. It is my greatest honor and joy to work with students, to mentor and advise, and be a person of use at this threshold stage of their lives.

If you take my class, you will: Work harder than you ever have; respect and admire yourself as a learner and leader; look within for answers for your own "inner Einstein;" know that your learning is needed; and do meaningful work you are proud of that can position you for your next life and academic goals.

I’m a stickler for: Enthusiasm and gratitude for the gift of consciousness. May we do justice to it.

UNIVERSITY OF OREGON ERSTED AWARD FOR DISTINGUISHED TEACHING; PROVOST’S AWARD FOR INNOVATION IN TEACHING; SENIOR FULBRIGHT DISTINGUISHED LECTURESHIP; NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES, OFFICE OF THE PROVOST BOOK PUBLICATION AWARD, WILLIAMS FELLOWSHIP, CLARK HONORS COLLEGE TEACHING INNOVATION FELLOWSHIP, AMERICAN COUNCIL OF LEARNED SOCIETIES, FULBRIGHT SPECIALIST