About
What is your advising philosophy? One of the questions I often get from students and sometimes parents is, "How many students do you advise?" My answer is always the same: "One at a time." This response is not meant to be flip or disdainful in any way. Instead this standard reply suggests an advising philosophy in which I endeavor to be attentive for each student as an individual; and that each of these individuals is uniquely gifted. My objective is always to help the student identify this gift and to carve out an academic program which nurtures it. In addition my advising is grounded on the premise that students are citizens, future leaders and creative, independent thinkers, in the making. Thus my objective is to foster trusting relationships with young adults that will in turn help them build the skills and confidence they will need to make a positive contribution to society.
What was your path to Newnan? I love the creativity involved in being an effective teacher. My path to Newnan stems from my search for novel ways to empower students and to have them think critically about the value/utility of their education across all individual subjects. I also yearned to have dialogues with students that focused less on grades and more on how classes individually and collectively connect to a broader life mission.
What do you enjoy about working in Newnan? Witnessing how students grow from adolescents to (in most cases) fully formed adults and citizens over the four years of our work together. I consider it a unique privilege to play a role in this process.
Class you loved and why? In my very first term as an undergraduate at Washington University I took Introduction to Jazz Studies with Dr. Tilford Brooks. A musician, scholar, and WWII era Tuskegee Airman, the unique blend of history, musicology, economics, and close textual analysis Dr. Brooks brought to this course marked the beginning of a lifelong fascination with this unique American art form and to interdisciplinary scholarship more generally.
