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Patricia SpencerAssistant ProfessorWriting
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My home town of Wellsboro--a mere two hours southwest of Ithaca--is the “gateway to the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon” and the Pine Creek Rail Trail, voted by USA Today as one of the "10 great places to take a bike tour." I canoed and rafted Pine Creek and hiked the trails around the canyon for most of my pre-teen years, before I longed for a bit more pavement. Since I remained within its borders for my undergraduate and graduate programs in education, at the University of Pittsburgh, Penn State, and Mansfield University, I’m a Pennsylvanian. However, Ithaca and New York state has been my home--along with my husband, Dennis, our children, Andrea and Kienan, and our pets, Madison and Dexter--for twenty years, and my extended family has almost forgiven me for migrating north.
After teaching writing and working with students with disabilities at IC from 1988-1994, and with the blessing of my colleagues, I hill-hopped to Cornell to test administrative waters. There I directed an Instructional and Undergraduate Research Support unit in the College of Engineering, where I earned my title as “Queen of Grants,” since 80% of my unit’s funding came from outside sources—alumni donors, foundations, corporate, and government sponsors. We created peer-facilitated academic excellence workshops for 1,200 undergraduate students, prepared graduate students as teaching assistants, and conducted undergraduate research in diverse fields, including robotics, biomechanics, nanofabrication, and hybrid vehicle design.
After five years at a research university, and motivated by my desire to return to the classroom full-time, I returned to Ithaca College in 2001 to support the Professional Writing concentration in our department and to pilot an undergraduate course in Grant Writing, but with a service-learning twist—live proposals and real community partners. That was eight years ago, and as I say to my students each semester: “I will stay in the classroom, as long as you keep inviting me back.” When I’m not writing proposals or seeking funding sources for “strategic acts of kindness,” I enjoy other forms of “development”--exercise, excursions, and Ella Fitzgerald; dark comedy, dark chocolate, and eclectic design. As I’ve discovered, life, learning, and writing should incorporate your passions.
