Greetings! I’m Catherine E. Saunders on formal publications; in most other situations, I go by Cathy. As the blog title suggests, I’m a longtime full-time contingent faculty member. I teach writing — mostly English 302, an advanced research-and-writing-in-and-about-the-disciplines course — at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.*
I’m currently coordinating the English 302 Open Educational Resources (OER) project,* an effort to strengthen and to some extent regularize an existing culture of collaboration among English 302 instructors by gathering and circulating creative commons-licensed versions of our assignments, activities, and other curricular materials in a centralized collection (currently collected on a Blackboard organization; we have plans to move to a public site sometime in 2017).
I hold a Ph.D. in American Literature, and my ongoing research interests center on 19th-century American literature, particularly the literature of the American abolitionist movement.
Posts on this blog will undoubtedly reflect, and sometimes directly engage, perspectives informed by other aspects of my identity: practicing Christian (and active member of, and ordained elder in, the Presbyterian Church in the USA*), environmentalist, local historian, choir member, gardener, walker with a particular fondness for canal towpaths.
As the current banner image reflects, I’m also a lifelong resident of the greater Washington, D.C. area (with breaks for college and grad school), child of a diplomat, watching with considerable anxiety the dawn of the Trump administration (the image is the view from the window of my apartment, looking across the Potomac and Theodore Roosevelt Island — another favorite walking spot — to the monuments on the mall, the Capitol, and, somewhere off to the left of the Washington Monument, the White House). That perspective may show up as well.
I receive professional correspondence at csaunde1 AT gmu.edu (the last character in the username is a numeral one, not a letter L), and personal correspondence at cathy.saunders AT gmail . Anything sent to the GMU address is subject to FOIA.
*All opinions expressed on this blog are my own, and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer, other members of the English 302 OER project team, my denomination, or any other person or entity with whom/which I am affiliated. This blog is entirely self-funded, thanks to the excellent and affordable services provided by Reclaim Hosting.
