• "Education breeds confidence. Confidence breeds hope. Hope breeds peace."

    – Confucius

I am—first and foremost—a teacher.

As an instructor, I must understand how students learn. I am responsible for creating a productive classroom learning environment and helping students connect past knowledge with new discoveries. 

I firmly believe in active learning and maintaining a lively and interactive classroom. Teaching is not about lecturing students. Rather, it is about presenting theories, concepts, and empirical material to students in a way that encourages them to integrate this information into their own life experiences. I try to accomplish this in my presentations, classroom discussions, writing assignments, and experiential / community-based learning.

It is essential that students not only learn about criminology but also build a foundation from which they can demonstrate their employability skills and apply their academic knowledge to the workplace and their daily lives. Thus, ensuring successful entrance into the workforce is paramount, and key career readiness competencies are incorporated throughout my curricula.

I know how difficult learning can be.

I struggled to learn due to a learning disability (central auditory processing disorder) and being hearing impaired (sensorineural hearing loss). As such, I aim to be the teacher I needed when I was younger.

My top priority is creating an inclusive environment where all students:

  • Are extended a sense of belonging

  • Feel supported intellectually and academically

  • Have opportunities to engage with course material

Courses I Regularly Teach.
(Some fun course material coming soon...)

  • Introduction to Criminology

    An exploration of how crime is defined and measured, and an examination of crime patterns and trends. Includes a critical assessment of the consequences of crime and solutions to behavior that has been deemed “criminal.”

  • Crime, Law, & Society

    An interdisciplinary exploration of the leading theoretical explanations of criminal behavior.

  • Policing & Corrections

    An investigation of the complexities of justice policy—and lack thereof—with regard to policing and corrections, including unintended consequences and ethical considerations of current and emerging social policies and laws.

  • Criminal Justice Systems

    An in-depth study of the functions, structure, and organization of the agencies that are responsible for the administration of justice.

  • Research Methods

    An assessment of the strengths and limitations of various modes of quantitative data collection including experiments, questionnaires, content analysis, and the use of secondary data. Emphasis is placed on ethical issues, becoming a critical consumer of research, and developing the ability to design and carry out an independent study.

  • Paved path in the woods the splits in two directions

    Pathways in Sociology & Criminology

    This course explores the possibilities of careers in Sociology and Criminology. Students examine the structural constraints individuals face as they consider personal and
    occupational vocations, explore specific career pathways, discuss the logistics of the job market, and begin to develop resources to make them competitive applicants.

  • Sociology Capstone Course

    A course designed for sociology majors as they transition from their undergraduate college experience to the variety of publics they will encounter in their lives after graduation. Students engage in a number of structured and supervised experiences that are extensions of their sociological knowledge and relate to their future careers, their own lives, and the broader community.

  • Criminology Capstone Internship

    A dynamic and interactive course serving as a capstone option for the Criminology major in which students participate in an internship for a minimum of 180 experiential learning hours at a mutually agreed upon location. Through interactions with practitioners, students develop marketable skills, begin to establish networks, and recognize and apply learned concepts from the major course sequence as they are applied in the professional environment.

  • Criminology Senior Thesis

    The Senior Thesis serves as a capstone option for the Criminology major and is the product of scholarly research of the highest academic quality. It demonstrates the student's excellence, originality, and dedicated effort. The completed thesis is part of the scholarly record of College.

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