I began teaching photography at the University of Colorado Denver (CU Denver) in 1998 with four years of teaching experience from the State University of New York, School of Art and Design at Alfred University (NYSCC Alfred,) four years teaching at Princeton University, and two years teaching at the University of Rhode Island (URI.) Teaching at NYSCC, Princeton and URI was full of remarkable opportunities to work with extraordinary educators, artists and students. Working in an Ivy League school, a nationally top-ranked art school, and state universities, I experienced teaching diverse students with a wide range of backgrounds, educational and career goals, and creative expertise. I experienced working in a variety of departments, programs and institutions, each with unique missions, which helped me develop a broad understanding of arts education and higher education overall.
When I arrived to the College of Arts & Media (CAM) the college was newly formed. This extraordinary opportunity matched my enthusiasm to build programs, establish learning and program outcomes, develop a cohesive faculty team, establish foundation and capstone courses, and create co-curricular events and opportunities to enhance student learning and build quality programs.
Over the course of my teaching career, I have made significant changes in my approach to teaching, transforming my pedagogy from a faculty-centered approach to student-centered teaching and learning. As I constantly strive to be an effective teacher committed to enhancing student learning, I have embraced teaching with technology tools, applied contemporary teaching methodologies to my work with students, and focused my efforts on cultivating engagement through a learning environment centered on discovery. Over the years, I have gained expertise in a number of areas including, interactive collaborative critiquing, curricular mapping, knowledge scaffolding, alignment of course activities to learning outcomes, three-way assessment on student projects that includes peer review, self assessment and teacher assessment, developing course syllabus as a comprehensive road map for student success, deploying knowledge surveys, carefully designed rubrics, and other assessment tools as a means of measuring whether or not students are achieving learning outcomes.
Courses that I have taught include include Drawing, 2-D Design, 3-D Design, First Year Seminar, Introductory Photography, Digital Photography, Alternative Processes, Documentary Photography, senior-level photography projects, Color Photography, BFA thesis, Studio Lighting, and the History of Photography. I have mentored senior projects, internships, independent studies, and undergraduate student research projects. In addition, I co-founded and established a study abroad program in Italy called Progetto Perugia. I have had exciting opportunities to teach in interdisciplinary collaborative programs and to work with remarkable photographic artists and educators such as Carol Golemboski, Bill Adams, Bart Parker and Emmit Gowin.