Faculty

Thank you very much for this award; I’m relieved it isn’t the Hell Raiser’s Lifetime Achievement prize since that’s not how I’d like to be remembered. I’m very grateful for your recognition, especially since I work alongside many stellar teachers, scholars, and campus and community leaders who are deserving of it as well.<\/strong>

Teaching was my third career and I came to it rather late in life; in fact, I was 41 when I joined IC as an assistant professor. But I’ve appreciated it the most, even though the process of being in the academy was, at some level, self-destructive. I say this because I’ve been trying to excavate my own intellectual foundations ever since graduate school when I first began to recognize that I was a colonized subject whose first language, English, isn’t even her mother tongue. Being in the classroom allowed me to continue dismantling parts of myself, which is perhaps why I chose to teach what—and how—I did.<\/strong>

And that, of course, was self-indulgent since my own struggles and desires and anxieties shaped the texts I picked, with which generations of students then had to struggle as well. I also feel self-indulgent because I had the freedom to write about things that mattered most to me and to speak my mind (freely!) even when doing so was the wrongest thing to do. So, I am grateful to my students and faculty and staff colleagues for having given me the space to find myself more fully through my teaching and scholarship, and service; to then reward me for that journey is astonishing to me.<\/strong>