Self-portrait  (March, 2000)

From the fall of 1997 through the summer of 2006, I served as an Associate Faculty member at Collin College (which means that I was a part-time instructor for the college during that time.) From 1997 until the spring of 2000, I taught the Humanities 1301 course in the classroom on the Spring Creek Campus, which I greatly enjoyed doing. In the spring of 2001, I began teaching an online version of the course at the request of the college, and I've taught multiple online sections of Humanities 1301 every semester since that time. In the fall of 2006, I became a full-time faculty member of the college, teaching Humanities 1301 both online and in the classroom (on the Central Park Campus).

In addition to Collin College, I've taught at the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD), the Art Institute of Dallas, ITT Technical Institute, and Florida Community College at Jacksonville. The courses that I taught at those institutions included rhetoric and composition, advanced composition, literary analysis, humanities, 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 at the same university.

In light of my educational history, you might not be surprised to learn that my non-academic professional experience also traverses a wide spectrum. In between my sojourns in academia, I spent three years as a computer software analyst, two years as a technical writer in the computer industry, and four years as a copy editor and supervisor of copy editors for a large marketing services agency. Most recently, I worked for two years as a research associate at a research center for studies in literary translation at a university in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

You'll find that most of the experiences described above will influence my design of this course. For instance, current discussion topics in the course 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, both in the literary and visual arts; and the transformative effects of current-day electronic communication media upon our culture and those of us who partake in it. The topics of 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 resident by chance and circumstance, a scholar by necessity, and a teacher by choice. Other than that, like many people I like good music, good food, good movies, and good books (although you and I might disagree about what "good" means in each of these).


Rich DeRouen
Professor, Humanities
Collin College
 

Humanities 1301 -- Introduction

Collin County Community College