Kendall Center Staff

Leila Brammer Research, Scholarship, and Creativity Faculty Associate

At Gustavus, I have thrived as a teacher and a scholar and am excited to be involved in developing a supportive and vibrant environment for faculty scholarship and creativity. A scholarly community that supports faculty, celebrates accomplishment, and participates in meaningful conversations about faculty work is one that enhances our academic environment, rigor, and teaching. I look forward to the challenge, working with faculty, and lively discussions of the impressive scholarship and creativity of my colleagues.

Thia Cooper Interim Diversity and Inclusive Excellence Faculty Associate

When I first arrived at Gustavus, I was struck by how few students and faculty of color I saw. I was also struck by how few of the students of color seemed to take my classes. As I spent time in the Diversity Center, and got to know more students of color, more students of color took my classes. In terms of electives, several students told me, they tried to only take those recommended by their friends. And one of the important recommendations was whether a professor was attentive to issues of diversity. I try to model inclusivity in terms of religion, race, gender, sexuality and I try to encourage the same in my students, but both can be difficult! I wanted to take on this role as faculty associate in order to think about how to improve our habits and structures to be more inclusive of diversity in all its forms.

Deb Pitton Global and Cultural Engagement Faculty Associate

I'm Deb Pitton, Chair and Professor of Education. I have been a secondary classroom teacher, school board member and assistant superintendent of schools prior to joining the Education faculty at Gustavus. Experiential learning has always been a methodology that I find works well to engage learners in reflection and critical analysis. When you actually do something, go somewhere, engage in an activity - there is a connection that happens for the student that enhances their learning. That is why I enjoy supervising our student teacher when they are actively 'doing' teaching in the field, why I take students on January-away courses, why I implement service learning in my courses and why love to travel. I am excited to explore ideas about global learning throughout this next year as Faculty Association for Global and Cultural Engagement.