A.A. Seminole Community College
B.A. University of Virginia
M.A. Florida Gulf Coast University

I want students to do well in my class. My goal is to help people become better writers by becoming better thinkers. I like it when students say that I'm their favorite teacher, or that they don't mind waking up at 7:00am for my class, because it means I'm doing something right.

I teach at a learning-centered school because I worked my way through college as a mechanic, so when students tell me that they don't have time or can't afford to make school their first priority in life I can relate. I try to emulate the teachers that I found most helpful when I was in school. They were fair and approachable and more concerned with clarity than pomp. By no means am I an easy teacher, but I do believe in open book tests and short reading assignments. I'd much rather challenge students to spend their time forming and thinking about opinions instead of memorizing facts and rules, especially when most of those facts and rules can be found with a simple Google search.

It's rare that I read a book that I don't end up liking in some way, but over the years I've come to admire Fitzgerald's writing more than others. My studies of his life and work have revealed to me that he was not the emphatic, drunken, burst-of-creativity scrawler that many once believed him to be. In fact, he was very much a revision writer. This is exactly why I push my students to revise, revise, revise.

I'm an old school skater and a music lover. I play a little guitar, banjo, drums, and mandolin - though not as often or as well as I'd like. A few of my favorite bands are the Cramps, Morrissey, Chuck Ragan, Jonathan Richman, the Sisters of Mercy, Hall and Oates, Lucero, Legendary Shack Shakers, the Trashmen, the Sonics, Junior Kimbrough, Robert Johnson, Phillip Glass, Erik Satie, Jawbreaker, the Cure, Dead Kennedys, the Dead Milkmen, Richard Wagner, Steely Dan, the Crystal Method, and the Rosenberg Trio.

I'm a serious dog lover. When I'm not in class, I spend my time working with dogs - BAD dogs. I don't really like strict training to show them how to sit and roll over. Instead, I prefer to let them be dogs and work with what they do naturally. Since dogs don't have language, I have focused a lot of my study on the other ways they communicate. What they do by instinct, I have learned through observation, and I try to help the people around me understand their secret code so that they can become better handlers. 

Out of all the places I have visited and lived, Saint Pete is my favorite city, and working at the college is an honor. I'm not just your teacher, and you're not just my students, we're neighbors. I'm invested 100% in what I do here on a daily basis. I know I'm not changing the world, but I'm happy with the small changes that I see every term and every year as I meet more and more people in my classroom and on the streets.