Professional Background
Succinctly stated, my academic career started immediately after a summer celebration following high school graduation. I was accepted to Southwest Texas State University (SWTSU), San Marcos, Texas, with a partial music scholarship, and was pursuing a Music degree. I abandoned the idea of a degree after a couple of years, but continued pursing the music business and other career opportunities, finally moving to Nashville about 1980. After a little over ten years of Middle Tennessee adventures, I returned to school, Middle Tennesse State University (MTSU), this time with vengeance. I graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree May 1994 from the Agribusiness-Agriscience school in Plant and Soil Sciences with a Music minor. I attended MTSU another year and received a Minor in Biology, and was then accepted to the MTSU Biology graduate school.
I worked my way through graduate school as a Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA) teaching general biology and botany labs, graduating in August, 1998, with a Master of Science degree in Biology. Refer to my resume and research interest about awards, professional memberships and activities, gpa’s, etc.
I taught at MTSU as an adjunct instructor for a semester following graduation, and have been instructing at VSCC since then, including some summer sessions. While at VSCC I have taught an occasional General Biology (1030) lab and lecture, I instructed an off-campus Food Science course, I teach the Introduction to Biology 1010/1020 labs and lectures, and have recently began teaching Anatomy and Physiology.
The VSCC Math and Science Department has a reputation of being as rigorous and proficient as any undergraduate program in the state, and I am honored to be part of the VSCC Biology faculty.
I also assist with VSCC greenhouse responsibilities. We not only utilize many of these plants for Biology instruction, but there is an annual Spring plant sale on the campus to raise money for scholarship funds.