Can you tell us a little about yourself in general, your passions, interests and hobbies?

“I teach research methodology and oversee student research projects. I’m passionate about research, and I serve as a peer reviewer for an academic journal. I love the day a new
research project is assigned–a blank canvas to paint on, an untrammelled field, a swiss lake to dive into! We live in the information age and information is produced by research.”

Can you tell us a little about your family history, where you or your ancestors come from, which languages you speak?

“Ah-ha! I’m American with German, Irish, and Italian ancestors. For Americans, even speaking one language is considered a success; we’re still working on English. Two languages is magic; three must be sorcery! I speak about 1 ¾ at this time.”

How did you hear about Coventry Albert de Mun and why did you want to teach there?

“I was teaching high school in Meaux when our lycée opened a Coventry program. Then I met Sahil Sachdeva (the Paris coordinator) at a CU training in London and he made Paris sound like a great campus!”

What was your course of Study, what kind of degrees, diplomas do you hold, are you stillworking on academic research or a PhD?

“I’m a bit of a jack of all trades. I actually hold a BA, MA, and PhD in English Language and Literature from the University of Maryland. I was also a technical communicator in the software field for ten years. I started teaching a course at UM in technical communication course that was required by all majors (étudiants de toutes les matières) and through this course learned how to teach and conduct social science research (many of the methods we use in business research) in addition to interviewing and archival research from my humanities background. I’m beginning a research project about teaching research in an international environment and I still publish and serve as a peer reviewer on an international literary journal.”

What are some of the subjects, courses and projects you teach? Do you have a favourite and why?

“Well, I love teaching research for the reasons i stated above–it’s a kind of blue ocean in a bottle, your topic that you can dive into. It also gives me a chance to work individually with students and to learn something about each of their topics. I also love teaching international marketing, particularly intercultural communication, which is sort of the story of my life. ;)”

Can you tell us a little about the atmosphere at Coventry AdM both in and outside the classroom?

“One thing that sets CU ADM apart is that the coordinator, Sahil, and the staff have always given it the atmosphere of a British university. We treat the students as adults as well as future colleagues-we want nothing to do with high school culture. You don’t have to stand up when we enter the room, and you don’t need a note to go out for lunch or happy hour.”

What would be the most important hard and soft skills you aim to pass on to students at AdM?

“One difference I’ve noticed between the US job market and Europe, is that in Europe they always hire for very, very specific roles. In the states we believe in transferable skills: if you can analyze well your dissertation topic; if you can present yourself well in oral presentations, and understand the anatomy of a case study–you will ultimately be able to work anywhere!”

Can you tell us about Active Learning, the inverted classroom or any methods you use to engage students in non traditional ways?

“In the research class, we do use the inverted classroom–all the slides for the lectures are on Teams and students are encouraged to review them before lectures, but I also introduce more workshop style activities for the students, that are hands on, like teaching library research by teaching them the CU online library resources and asking them to find samples of different kinds of resources in real time in class.”

What are some of the challenges for teachers today and how do you overcome them?

“Well, in doing research it’s very important to cite sources, for two main reasons: first, we believe in giving credit where credit is do; we want to indicated any place we are using the work of others by providing a citation, but just as important is the fact that learning to use existing research through proper citations, actually highlights where we are doing our original thinking. So it’s always an effort to get students to understand intellectual property rights. Secondly, after the lockdown period, many of us habitually refer to our digital devices, but class is not the place for this, and students seem to have a shorter attention span for both reading and lectures. To accommodate this I insist students write notes in hand–no computers open when I’m speaking. But this encourages students to type handwritten notes later–this is great–Ernest Heminway said ‘90% of writing is rewriting.’”

Do you have a special of delightful memory or moment from Coventry you would like to share?

“We’ve really had a lot of fund on our trips to the UK, London and Coventry. These created a number of special moments and bonds in our classes.”

What piece of advice would you give a student considering going to Coventry AdM ?

“Go! But also, it will be the experience you make of it! The more you put in the more you will get out of it!”

Thanks so much!!!