I've been an Associate Faculty member at Collin County Community College since the fall of 1997. ("Associate Faculty" means that I'm a part-time instructor for the college, not a full-time faculty member.) Until the spring of 2000, I taught the Humanities 1301 course in the classroom on the Spring Creek Campus, which I greatly enjoyed doing. However, the location of a new full-time job made it impractical for me to continue teaching a classroom course. In the spring of 2001, I began teaching the online version of the course at the request of the college, and I've taught the online course every semester since that time.

In addition to Collin County Community College, I've taught at the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD), the Art Institute of Dallas, and ITT Technical Institute. The courses that I taught at those institutions included rhetoric and composition, advanced composition, literary analysis, written communications, and an introduction to computers. (I also occasionally served as primary technical support for a networked writing lab at UTD.)

My graduate education includes a Master of Arts in Humanities (from UTD), with an emphasis in the History of Ideas. My studies at UTD (which also included a number of courses in the doctoral program) encompassed history, philosophy, rhetoric, literature, and the arts. Oddly enough, my undergraduate degree is a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Louisiana Tech University, and I also spent a year studying in the graduate program in computer science there.

In light of my educational history, you might not be surprised to learn that my professional experience also traverses a wide spectrum. In between my sojourns in academia, I spent three years as a computer software analyst and two years as a technical writer in the computer industry. Until recently, I worked for four years as a copy editor and supervisor of copy editors for a large marketing services agency. Currently, I work full-time as a research specialist in the Center for Translation Studies at UTD.

You'll find that most of the experiences described above will influence my design of this course. For instance, current forum discussions revolve around: story, myth, and the enduring appeal of mythic characters in the human world; the challenging issues that surround the problems of knowledge and truth in the contemporary world; the various approaches that artists take to representing the world in their art, whether literary or visual; and the transformative effects of current-day electronic communications media upon our culture and those of us who partake in it. The topics of the forum discussions and other assignments evolve and change over time, but they'll usually grow out of one or more of my professional and scholarly interests.

A few last details? Hmm...well, in the interest of full disclosure, I should probably admit that I'm not a native Texan. I've lived in the Dallas area since 1988, but I grew up in south Louisiana. I'm a Cajun by birth, a Dallas-area resident by chance and circumstance, an intellectual by necessity, and a teacher by choice. Other than that, like many people I enjoy good music, good food, good movies, and good books (although you and I might disagree about what "good" means in each case).
 

Humanities 1301 -- Introduction

Collin County Community College