On August 15, 2025, I started my new job as a Special Instructor of Elementary Teacher Education in the Department of Teacher Education in the School of Education and Human Services at Oakland University in Rochester Hills, Michigan. In this position, my primary responsibility is to teach pre-service elementary teachers how to teach literacy.
From the New Faculty Orientation facilitated by Nivedita Mukherji, Associate Provost for Faculty Affairs, in partnership with the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning to the School of Education and Human Services’ pinning ceremony for undergraduate students just entering the teacher preparation program, the message is clear: Oakland University values teaching. Landing at an institution of higher ed that values teaching, I feel at home.
From Dean Jon Margerum-Leys’ meet-and-greet with my three fellow new hires where we had lunch with the six new hires from last year to our departmental faculty meeting of 16 around a large a conference table, I feel welcomed. I literally and figuratively have a seat at the table.
From my online, asynchronous, master’s level Disciplinary Literacy course where I am working with students who are aspiring/in-service teachers across grade levels and disciplines to my embedded literacy methods courses where I teach in elementary schools in Utica, Troy, and West Shelby Township, I feel a deep sense of alignment and purpose.
Upon graduating from CU Boulder’s Master’s Plus program in 2000 where I earned my master’s in curriculum and instruction and my State of Colorado elementary teaching license, my dear friend and colleague, Julie Cohen, gave me a book, Courage to Teach by Parker Palmer. Reading Parker Palmer’s words, I realized how I felt about teaching—it was way more than a job; it was a calling, a vocation. But for me, pursuing my vocation has not been a straightforward path; it’s been a dynamic process.
About 10 years ago, I began to ask myself if I was truly leading a value-drive life. Sometimes we have to fall out of alignment to find our way back into alignment. This interrogation required a hard, honest look—an embodied, sacred, intellectual, meditative inquiry—at what I cared most about and why. What emerged?
TEACHING, GRATITUDE, NONHARMING, TRUTH, INTEGRITY
So what did [does] this look like in practice? After years of navigating the pursuit of a value-driven life, I find myself in a mental, emotional, and physical space that truly centers itself around teaching and—the promise of and belief in—teachers.
The School of Education and Human Services at Oakland University is in Pawley Hall. As you enter the building on the third floor, you hear the voices of young children playing on the first floor in the Lowry Center for Early Childhood Education. Off to the left beyond the glass doors, you see the Educational Resources Laboratory with this month’s featured display of flags and picture books representing South American authors, tables for studying and collaborating, and shelves upon shelves of books and resources for K-12 students that faculty and students can use in their courses.
Students sit in the foyer, taking a break between classes, chatting with a friend. On my way to my new office on the fourth floor, the sun pours through the windows, illuminating the atrium. Engraved in the wall up high, in the center of it all, is a Mari Evans quote:
Education… A jewel, casting brilliances into the future. ~ Mari Evans
No wonder I finally feel at home.