I am an Associate Professor of English at a community college in western New York, where I teach College Composition, Writing for the Sciences, and Technical Writing.
I started teaching college courses inside Attica Correctional Facility in 2011 through the college’s prison program. Today, while still teaching in Attica, I also teach in Wyoming and Groveland Correctional Facilities as a member of the Rochester Education Justice Initiative at the University of Rochester, and in Orleans Correctional Facility through a program at Nazareth University.
In 2021, I was honored to receive the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching.
When not reading student papers, I enjoy reading and writing about language, teaching, and American history, as well as portraying historical figures with Rudely Stamp’d Historical Impressions.
Originally from Massachusetts, I attended Salem State University and the University of Massachusetts at Boston, where I earned an MA in the Philosophy of Composition.
WRITINGS
“Liberators in Theory, Collaborators In Deed: Navigating the Constraints of the Prison Classroom,” in Teaching Literature and Writing in Prisons, edited by Sheila Smith McKoy and Patrick Elliot Alexander, Modern Language Association, 2019.
“‘On, On I Must Go’: An English Professor Reads Sherman’s Memoirs,” appendix chapter in Man of Fire: William Tecumseh Sherman in the Civil War, by Derek Maxfield, Savas Beattie Publishers, 2022.
“‘A Foretaste of Heaven’: How Elmira Gave the World Mark Twain,” appendix chapter in Hellmira: The Union’s Most Infamous POW Camp of the Civil War, by Derek Maxfield, Savas Beattie Publishers, 2019.
“‘You Might Not Like the Guy’: An English Professor Reads the Journals of Charles Wainwright,” Emerging Civil War.
“The Silence of the Falls: Niagara, The End of Language, and Francis Abbott’s Final Plunge,” Off Course: A journal for poetry, criticism, reviews, stories and essays.
CONFERENCES & PRESENTATIONS
“Incarcerated Students meet ChatGPT: Whose Rhetoric Is It, Anyway?,” presented at Writing, Thinking, and Learning with AI: Exploring Relationships of Rhetoric and Artificial Intelligence, SUNY Council on Writing.
“Liberators in Theory, Collaborators in Deed: Changing the Narrative on Higher Education in Prison,” College English Association Conference, New Orleans, LA.
“Maximum Security English: Toward a Student-Centered Prison Pedagogy,” paper presented at the New York College English Association Conference, Rochester, NY.
“Memoirs of Teaching in Prison,” panel presentation at the 6th Annual Higher Education in Prison Conference, Nashville, TN.
“Think Outside the Cell—A New Day, A New Way: A National Symposium and Call To Action on Issues Affecting the Incarcerated, the Formerly Incarcerated and Their Families,” New York, NY.
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