About Me

I’m a higher education professional specializing in social justice pedagogy and academic language ideology. I’m the Program Coordinator at Wayne State University’s Office for Teaching and Learning, and I’m writing a book (under contract with Routledge) about how colleges and universities can better support linguistic diversity in their classrooms and on their campuses, tentatively titled Language Diversity in Higher Education. If that’s something you’re interested in, the first thing you should do is check out April Baker-Bell‘s groundbreaking work, especially her book Linguistic Justice.

Before my time at Oakland, I was the Multilingual and Intercultural Program Coordinator at Gustavus Adolphus College, essentially a full-time advocate for linguistic diversity, in all its forms, through direct student support, faculty development, and campus and community programming.

I’m also a literary scholar, specializing in linguistic approaches to literature. I hold a Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst Department of English where I studied the politics of “non-native” and “non-standard” English representation in American fiction and culture of the long nineteenth century.

“Where did you get that shirt??” I made it! Learn more about how Everyone Has an Accent from JPB Gerald’s podcast “Unstandardized English” here!