EDUCATION
M.A., Fort Hays State University
TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
For me, teaching is a lot about the personal relationships developed with students. Teaching, especially predominantly freshman level courses, centers around supporting students as they find their way in college. Oh, and the Oxford comma – definitely, the Oxford comma.
EDUCATION
B.S. University of Colorado at Boulder
M.A. University of Northern Colorado
EDUCATION
B.A., English, McPherson College
M.F.A., Creative Writing, Ashland University, Ashland, OH
TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
“I tell my students on the first day of class to think of me as their writing coach, and to prepare themselves for an intense, diverse, creative writing experience. The ability to communicate clearly will set them apart in the job market, and even more importantly, will help my students to know themselves better. My promise to my students is that I will remain throughout the semester 100 percent invested in helping them to develop a writing process. I love my job. I love to witness the incremental growth of my students as they begin to see themselves, sometimes for the first time, as writers.”
EDUCATION
B.A., McPherson College
M.L.S., Fort Hays State University
TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
“Opinions. Everyone has them, but what makes ours better than those of others? It certainly is not determined by whose is yelled the loudest. As an educator and professor of College Composition, I teach students the importance of viewing all sides of issues, how and where to search those out themselves, to discern quality sources, and then to articulate their opinions with support and productive civility. As a professor of Young Adult Literature, I have a responsibility to expose students to a myriad of topics and situations through literature that they might not otherwise experience firsthand, teaching them empathy and understanding–two virtues we need in abundance.”
EDUCATION
B.A. from Wichita State University
M.Ed. from Wichta State University
Prof. Ami Martinez graduated from Wichita State University in 1997 with a B.A. in English literature and earned her Master’s of Education in 2008, also from Wichita State. Prof. Martinez began teaching at McPherson College in the fall of 2012 after teaching in Kansas high schools for nine years. Prof. Martinez teaches Rhetoric 1 and 2 as well as public speaking and strives to create an engaging and active classroom experience for all her students. In 2013, she accepted a fellowship from The Coleman Foundation; as part of this fellowship, Prof. Martinez has worked to create unique, real-world writing experiences for her students in order to help them understand the change-making power of words.
TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
“I teach with passion and compassion. As I prepare each lesson I consider not just what I want students to know, but also what I want them to be able to do. I believe one learns a skill by practicing that skill, and thus I aim for my classes to be as interactive as possible. Treating each student as an individual and meeting each student at his or her current skill level are central to my teaching philosophy. I know my students have great ideas, whether those ideas are about business, automotive restoration, biology, art, or any discipline; my job, I believe, is to support students in expressing those great ideas via the spoken and written word.”
EDUCATION
B.A., Trinity University in San Antonio
M.A., St. John’s College at Santa Fe
Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin
Prof. Stanley is particularly interested in ways in which literature can be used to help people examine their lives and talk about values. For that reason, she has served for ten years as a book discussion leader for the Kansas Humanities Council. For KHC, she has used stories to teach hospice values, to lead book discussions in a state prison, and to conduct a project teaching imprisoned fathers to read to their children. She was lead scholar for a Vietnam War project: “The Big Read” (funded by the NEA). After her travel seminar to Turkey, sponsored by the Institute for Interfaith Dialogue, she re-designed a course to use literature to teach students about world faiths through literature. At McPherson College, she teaches composition, poetry, and British and world literature.
TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
“I love helping people tell their stories and understand other people’s stories. You can’t hate people if you know their stories, and so I think a mind well-furnished with stories is a pleasant place to live. That’s why I teach writing and literature.”