MY MISSION AND PURPOSE: As an educator-ally with underserved populations; my teaching, scholarship, and service is dedicated to bridging communities as well as transforming discourses, policies, and practices that disenfranchise and disempower real lives. As a believer, I strive to do all things on/with a higher purpose in an effort to honor God and others.
REGISTER FOR MY “HUMANITIES IN CLASS” WEBINAR (September 24th, 2024 @7:00pm)
My 2022 Charlotte Teachers Institute (CTI) Seminar Introduction Video
Seminar Title: Charlotte as Teaching Canvas: Creating Culturally Responsive Classrooms and Equity Mindsets by Engaging in Local Diasporic Spaces
As an educator-ally with underserved students since 1999, I consciously adapt my pedagogy to meet the unique needs of each context and ensure that my curricula is culturally responsive, inclusive, meaningful, and encourages compassionate thinking and living. My teaching/lived experiences, professional development (enrichment), community engagement, research interests, social justice orientation, radical (revolutionary) positionality, as well as studies and travels abroad have contributed to my critical teaching philosophy.
I challenge students to expand their sociocultural and linguistic repertoires in order to understand, communicate, be sensitive to, and cultivate relationships with diverse communities. Additionally, I encourage students to be introspective on how their own beliefs, biases, and monolingualism shapes our world as well. My hope is that students seek intellectual liberation by becoming radical thinkers who critically examine and commit to transforming inequitable global systems and discriminatory laws/practices.
I am excited to have been elected to the CMS Community Equity Committee! (2020-2022)
The Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) Community Equity Committee Charge “The CMS Board will convene a Community Equity Committee as a partner in dialogue regarding equity. Members of the Community Equity Committee will review and discuss CMS data and programs in order to monitor progress toward equity. Equity Committee members will represent members of parent, student, educational, faith, and community groups with the expectation that they will become both thought partners in, and community advocates for equity. The diverse nature of the group will provide staff with a sounding board for future initiatives.”
Voting with Freshmen Students at Johnson C. Smith University
My first goal as an educator is to create an atmosphere that fosters mutual respect and understanding by establishing a non-threatening space where we all feel comfortable to express ourselves freely. In order to accomplish this, I meet students where they are and encourage them to share their own lived-experiences, existing knowledge, and/or opinions to build connections and trust.
While I meet students where they are when they begin my course, I expect them to be fully committed to expanding their perspectives, understanding, and practices. In an effort to make their learning experiences meaningful, I try to connect the curriculum to the world by choosing materials that reflect the students’ intersectional identities.
As a critical educator, I strongly urge students to work towards changing social disparities and racial inequities. I invite students to participate in community engagement opportunities to enrich (broaden) their humanistic, cultural, and linguistic understanding and practices. I want them to explore multiple ways of being, knowing, understanding and contributing to our world.
I also introduce students to various cultural and linguistic varieties that exist within different diasporic contexts. an educator-ally, I index the real benefits of being multi-lingual, culturally-competent, and familiar with various communities of practice. I encourage a community-based learning environment where intercultural-communication, bridging cross-cultural understandings, and fostering relationships allows students to apply their knowledge (skills).
In an effort to create a dynamic and engaging learning environment, I am committed to applying suggestions from student evaluations. I pride myself on consistently assessing/innovating my teaching style and/or curriculum. In doing this, I change practices and/or materials that did not fit in the past and co-create new lessons that are more meaningful to students. Lastly, I maintain an open- door (communication) policy where I encourage students to visit me in my office or contact me via e-mail. I want them to know and feel that I am invested in their success in my course as well as I care about their well-being in this world.
I served as the 2016-2018 NAACP Faculty Advisor at Johnson C. Smith University
The Johnson C. Smith University NAACP collegiate chapter in the Martin Luther King, Jr. parade with the Charlotte NAACP chapter.
The students met the first Black woman elected as the mayor of Charlotte in 2017, Vi Alexander Lyles.
The Johnson C. Smith University NAACP collegiate chapter hosted open dialogues with local political candidates on campus.
This initiative was spearheaded by the student president who was a political science major.