Instructor biography:

I am recently married (my last name used to be Smolenski) and I also recently finished my Ph.d. I earned my doctorate in English from Warnborough University in Canterbury, UK; which was a fun experience. I earned my BA and MA, both in English also, from Cal State San Bernardino. I really enjoyed my years in college, and they made me want to become a professor of English.

So, here I am. I have been teaching college English for about four years now; two of those years with Barstow CC and Riverside CC. I also teach for Westwood Online, Ivy Tech College, and the Art Institute Online, Kaplan, and DeVry. Everything I do is basically online, although I have and still sometimes do teach traditional classes. I have recently had the fortune of developing a few online junior high/high school classes for Oregon schools, and will be helping them develop and teach their online format for K-12, which is exciting.

Before I taught college, I taught elementary school for a couple of years.
That was also fun; I really enjoyed working with children and I learned to develop a lot of patience.

I've been published several times for poems (won a couple of poetry awards), have had both my thesis and dissertation published, and currently write an online column for the Pacific Review, an online academic journal, about online teaching. I also volunteer time and write for the Beagle Rescue Center (I have a beagle and am a big dog fanatic) so I volunteer and do some research and writing about beagles for their website.

I also just had a book come out titled Narcissism in High Fidelity. It’s on
Amazon:

Narcissism in High Fidelity

I am a big Nick Hornby fan. It's nice to have you all here and I look forward to getting to know all of you.
 

Mrs. Nelson