“Georgetown is an intensely warm and familiar place, it feels like home to me. It’s somewhere I associate with collaboration, experimentation and support. I’ve been really lucky to have most of my intellectual life develop here, as a graduate student and a staff member. Georgetown is and has been a space of discovery and growth.
The Jesuit tradition of cura personalis, or care of the whole person, is perhaps the thing that has most profoundly impacted my growth. Every person who comes through my office is a complete and dynamic individual, with their own story and concerns, and the fact that I can become aware of that whole story and work to ensure these individuals’ success in holistic ways is really meaningful.
I wanted to work at Georgetown after I graduated from the Communications, Culture and Technology Program because of my experience as a teaching assistant in the American Studies program working with seniors writing their theses. I fell in love with that process. I feel like the thesis component of the program captures a lot of what I love about Georgetown. It’s rigorous, difficult and challenging, but also asks students to do something that matters to them. It offers them support, guidance and a community to see them through that challenge. On occasion I teach a class on American horror films for the program.
For anyone coming to Georgetown for the first time, leave cynicism at the main gate and embrace the community, the complexity, the history and the possible future of a really interesting and engaged institution. I encourage students to be themselves, to fearlessly embrace their own interests, to ask a lot of questions and be proactive about their learning – inside and outside the classroom.”
