Jennifer Grode

Jennifer is originally from Oklahoma and attended college at the University of Kansas, where she earned undergraduate degrees in linguistics and French language and literature. Upon graduation, she was selected to be a part of Teach for America's 2006 corps and moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana to teach middle school special education, reading, and English in a low-income community. She subsequently moved to New Orleans, where she was fortunate enough to take part in the post-Katrina rebuilding of the city's school system.

Adrienne Stacy

Adrienne is an alumna of Georgia State University holding a Master's degree in Applied Linguistics as well as an M.Ed in Reading and ESOL. Her previous experience includes teaching in the Intensive English Programs at both Georgia State University and Iowa State University. At the latter, she worked on a large-scale assessment project and developed an interest in item writing for language tests. Adrienne currently teaches classes in all skill areas, but has a particular interest in teaching writing.

Katie Dutcher

Katie is an alumna of Kent State University holding a Master's degree in English with a concentration in TESL and bachelor's degrees in Spanish and French. 

Katie has taught summer intensive English programs at the Universidad Autόnoma de Morelos in Cuernavaca, Mexico.  She taught English for Academic Purposes at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco. During her four years there, she appreciated the opportunity to collaborate with foreign and Moroccan colleagues, refine her approach to teaching reading and writing, and gain administrative experience.

Lisa Leopold

Lisa Leopold has taught at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, Illinois Central College, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Joliet Junior College, and at El Centro de la Niña Trabajadora in Quito, Ecuador.  Her teaching experience includes instructing university undergraduate and graduate students, community college students, refugees, and children.  She has also researched and produced a proposal for an intensive English as a Second Language curriculum for a community college.

Kelley Calvert

"Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world." – Paulo Friere, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

“Writing is a form of personal freedom. It frees us from the mass identity we see in the making all around us.” – Don Delillo, American novelist