Kathryn Robinson Huff,MFA

"Art is an ongoing conversation..."

If T.S. Eliot is correct and a writer's individual talent is an essential addition to the tradition of what has already been said, then I happily contribute to the exchange. My writing seeks to further the dialogue. In reading widely, writing effectively, and thinking critically, I engage an artful conversation that is part thesis, part antithesis, and part an entirely new creation, a fully realized synthesis of discovery. Writing is a conversation that thrusts and parries and rises to new transcendencies of image, idea, form, and subject. I am passionate about three key concepts: 1) that good readers make good writers and good writers make good thinkers; 2) that a writer has to read and write a lot of stuff––the good stuff, the bad stuff, it's all part of the stuff (with a nod to Marvin Bell); and 3) that three "rights" make good writing: a writer must express the right word at the right time in the right way. The secret to success in writing lies in hunkering down and finding these truths in your own writing life. There are no shortcuts as far as I can see. Writing takes every ounce of courage you've got, knees knocking, but, oh! what joy there is in the discovery.

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”––William Butler Yeats

Effective teaching in higher education is a transformational, redemptive, and generative act. No one remains the same after the educational experience, not the teacher, not the student, not the community, and not the world. It is a process of discovery whereby seeds germinate and vocation ignites.

I am committed to inspiring and equipping students to deeper thought as conscientious citizens of the world, with the aim of uniting intellectual rigor and honed craft with compassion, wisdom, and service. I see the classroom as the ideal place to awaken this deepest potential, especially in the development of the student’s critical reading and writing processes.