I am the Curator of Special Collections and Archives at the University of Denver. I provide instructional support for teaching faculty across the disciplines who want their students to have in-class experience with archival material. I often co-teach with reference and instruction librarians.

I am also an affiliate faculty member in the Library and Information Science program at the University of Denver, and have taught Intro to Archives and Advanced Archives for the past few academic years.

Philosophy and Approach

My teaching philosophy is informed by bell hooks, Paulo Freire, and other educators who approach pedagogy as a potentially liberatory practice. I also draw heavily from the teaching philosophy and approach outlined on TeachArchives.org, and recommend that anyone who plans on teaching with primary sources in a college or university take a closer look at it. Same with the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education.

My instruction sessions focus on small group work and direct engagement with primary sources, selected in consultation with each teaching faculty member, in ways that support the faculty member’s goals for the course. These instruction sessions aim to enhance students’ confidence, ability, and desire to engage in critical inquiry, and set them up to participate meaningfully in scholarly discourse in their chosen domain. Where possible, I utilize primary sources that highlight voices hidden or excluded from scholarly or published sources. My goal is for students to walk away from the session with an inkling that scholarship is a conversation that they are now a part of, and that scholarly authority is constructed and contextual.

Note: I plan to create and maintain a working bibliography of sites and sources that I find helpful and informative for teaching with primary sources, but that’s not yet in place. The above, with the exception of the link to TeachArchives.org, is based on my anecdotal experience and paraphrasing from sources which I’ve not yet cited/linked to above.