My commitment to social justice and knowledge as power informs my overall teaching philosophy. I imagine the classroom as a liberatory space that transforms the students’ and instructor’s relationship to knowledge. Instead of treating students as passive recipients of knowledge, I regard them as capable of making valuable contributions to the learning process. I facilitate a student-centered dynamic that creatively connects students’ prior information and experiences to sociological frameworks. Making knowledge relevant to students’ lives enables them to become lifelong critical thinkers and public sociologists, actively engaged with their social worlds.
Teaching Experience
Colorado State University Pueblo (2015-present)
- Inside Out Prison-Exchange: Crime and Justice
- Crime and Society in Science Fiction
- Sociology of Immigration
- Theories of Intersectionality
- Race and Criminalization
- Criminological Theory
- Penology
- Crime, Drugs, and Social Policy
- Social and Cultural Theory
- Poverty, Wealth, and Class Inequality
University of Colorado Boulder (2008-2015)
- Drugs in U.S. Society
- Juvenile Delinquency
- Race and Ethnicity in the U.S.
- Crime and Society
- Deviance in U.S. Society