Personal Background

In terms of issues of diversity, I primarily value reflexivity, accessibility, and concern for the background and circumstances of others and the situation where we are currently engaged. I grew up with privilege—white, cis-male, straight, middle class with a relatively stable household—but was often exposed to quite different circumstances. For most of life, my mother was a military nurse and nurse practitioner who worked with veterans in pain management and addiction, and my father was a psychologist who worked in group homes before he became a child psychologist. I often had to spend time at their places of work when I was younger due to their schedule, introducing me to a variety of people and settings. Moreover, both parents fostered a deep sense of empathy, compassion, and openness that continues today.

Through my undergrad and masters, I tutored and mentored students in a variety of programs, and I volunteered as a coordinator at our student-run soup kitchen and for a program that brought students to visit prisons.

Last, as someone who suffers from mental health issues, including severe clinical depression an anxiety, as well as physical issues (including a major surgery), I can often empathize with individuals who are struggling. All of this has made me more reflective about my actions and the situations, actions, and beliefs of others; concerned with accessibility at a basic disability level and in a more general sense; and mindful of the limits of my own subjectivity and the range of experiences, worlds, and trauma that people carry.

Teaching

My immediate concern with teaching is accessibility. While my past and current institutions had specific disability guidelines and plans, which I follow, I also try to be sensitive to technology access, craft accessible slides and teaching materials, engage in a range of learning styles and preferences, and provide options for flexibility with work and classroom situations—while still holding to course requirements and institutional standards of excellence. As my teaching statement notes, I am a student-centered instructor who tries to create a collaborative learning environment that goes beyond the classroom.

In terms of diversity more directly in the classroom, I practice grading contracts that value effort and participation more than mere deliverables. Increasingly, I have tried to involve anti-racist pedagogy as I craft these contracts and the course in general. I encourage students, if they want to, to use their native language(s) in their work and in the classroom setting, as long as they recognize that others, including myself, may not speak it. We often have critical discussions about different belief systems, media literacy, language politics, current events, etc., trying to balance classroom safety and civility with the often muddy, difficult discussions that these topics invoke. My approach is based in nonviolent philosophy and conflict resolution, which I started formally as part of my B.A. and continue in my personal and professional life today.

Research

In training and practice, I try to be especially concerned with my own positionality and the experience and position of subjects and stakeholders. With a background in feminist rhetoric, disability studies, and fandom studies, reflexivity tends to be at the forefront: What is my relationship to this material and how might my work affect stakeholders? Also, as I have largely worked with online communities, I am especially sensitive to their privacy, the possibility of doxing, and other toxic behaviors. Last, as platforms and places online have privileged some and hurt others, I consider the ablism, racism, sexism, etc., that seemingly “neutral” actors, human and nonhuman, enact, and I try to incorporate scholars from different positionalities to counter my subjectivity and educate and inform me on these issues.

Service

At Syracuse, my service experience has involved being a teaching mentor, helping to create curricular materials for instructors to draw from, being an assistant administrator of our writing center, and being on a hiring committee for a fulltime faculty. As part of this process, I have encountered and considered the diverse experiences and needs that students, faculty, and staff alike all face at the University and beyond. When considering the faculty member hire, for example, who would work with STEM departments, our committee considered the systemic lack of diversity in most STEM programs and broader STEM fields, and while diversity was just one variable, it was something we recognized as important for healthy, robust departments and fields beyond. Similarly, when being a teacher mentor, I considered the background and needs of the teachers I was working with and tried to instill a similar care and value in their own teaching for their students, course materials, and course construction. As a colleague, I have strived to be an active listener and respond to the issues that may not affect me directly, but may affect my colleagues with a different perspective.