Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning, and Professor of English
President, Learning Communities Association
Kingsborough Community College
Brooklyn, New York

I wear a number of hats at Kingsborough Community College—I am the Director of our Center for Teaching and Learning, a Professor in the Department of English, and a member of the leadership team for Kingsborough’s Learning Communities. My master’s degree in TESOL and my Ph.D in Linguistics (first language acquisition) reflect my interest in language learning, although in the past twenty years that interest has expanded to include learning, in general, and integrative learning in particular. As a result, much of my current work focuses on collaborating with faculty at Kingsborough and across the country to foster and assess students’ integrative thinking in learning communities.

My recent publications include A Workbook for Designing, Building, and Sustaining Learning Communities; Building Synergy for High-Impact Practices: First Year Seminars and Learning Communities; Sustained Faculty Development in Learning Communities; Exploring Voice as Integration: A Direction for Assessing Student Work in Learning Communities with Composition; and Integrating Best Practices: Learning Communities and the Writing Center.

My work with learning communities includes serving as Editor of Learning Communities Research and Practice, as Past-President of the Learning Communities Association, and as Resource Faculty here at the National Summer Institute on Learning Communities. This summer, I look forward, again, to working with teams interested in building and growing learning community programs on their campuses.