TEACHING

Erin's teaching experience includes designing, organizing, and teaching several courses. As part of her graduate training, she completed several classes on teaching sociology and has received faculty and student evaluations on her teaching style and course content.

Her approach to teaching is informed by abolitionist pedagogy, which is defined by Bettina Love[1] as “the practice of working in solidarity with communities of color while drawing on the imagination, [and] creativity…of abolitionists to eradicate injustice in and outside of schools” (2). At its core, her pedagogy works to create a supportive environment wherein students feel accountable as a part of our learning community while also ensuring that students have all of the resources needed to meaningful engage in the course. She accomplishes this by making courses fully accessible, designing syllabi to be inclusive and student-oriented, including students in current research projects, and encouraging dynamic and engaging discussions.

She is dedicated to teaching and pedagogy in her service work. In particular, she worked as a member of the Junior Scholar Advisory Board for Gender & Society. In this role, she prepared teaching modules utilizing published articles from the journal’s recent and archival issues. These modules are ready-to-use tools on a variety of topics for instructors teaching about issues related to sex, gender, and sexuality. She also served as a member of the Sociology Undergraduate Committee at UIC, where she supported the development and implementation of initiatives for undergraduate students, such as the Graduate Undergraduate Research Mentoring Program.

[1] Love, Bettina. 2019. We Want to Do More Than Just Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Freedom. Beacon Press.