Survey of Western Culture I 201-001 Survey of Western Culture I 201-002 (hybrid) Survey of Western Culture II 202-01 (hybrid)
Students enrolled for Fall 2007, feel free to contact me using the pre-formatted eMail form below:
To leave a phone message, call 703-494-9450. Always be prepared to leave a message. Include your name and course title.
Brief Autiobiography
Horse Latitudes
In my youth, I was dedicated to equestrian studies. I raised ponies and horses at my family home in Richmond Virginia (with more than a few scoldings about riding through our neighbors' soy beans). After years working at local stables as a trainer and veterinary assistant, I completed a degree at Morven Park International Equestrian Center. I felt compelled to leave the horse industry, however, as I can't reconcile the callous disposal of animals as worn tools. I now raise herds of cats at my home in Woodbridge, Virginia.
History Repeating
Between equestrian jobs, and being a history buff, I became fascinated with historical reenactment. In living-history programs at Ash Lawn-Highland and Monticello, I found constructive outlet for my hobbies in historic textiles and costuming (not to mention the skills I learned as stage crew in high school theatre). After completing a BA degree at Mary Baldwin College, I was lucky enough to continue directly to the Cooperstown Graduate Program. With a shiny, new Masters of Museum Studies, I held posts as program director at Pricketts Fort in Fairmont, West Virginia (where I ment my future husband) and at Rocky Mount Museum in Piney Flats Tennesssee. Of course, it's no surprise that funding for education in general and museums in particular, is a hard sell. So, when my husband got an opportunity in Information Technology in Washington DC., I left the museum programming profession with only a little regret.
The Art of Assisting Discovery
Once settled in Washington, I made inroads in education, starting with substiute teaching assignments in local grade schools. (It didn't take much of that to remind me why I prefer horses.) The community college level, however proved to be quite satisfying; students are generally well motivated and cross cultural. Technology, too, has advanced to the point where on-line classes are recognized as socially, logistically and acedemically viable. I now teach as adjunct faculty for Northern Virginia Community College, primarily at the Woodbridge Campus and on-line. My subjects are Humanities, History and Art. Not a day goes by without proving that "The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery." ~ Mark Van Doren.
Publications
“John O’Brien Inman”. The Magazine Antiques: November 1998.
"Exhibit Catalog: Time Flies, 1720-1920: Two Hundred Years of Clocks in Tennessee." Rocky Mount Museum, 1996. Publication designed by Carolyn B. Wilkinson
Roos, Pieter N. and Carolyn B. Wilkinson. “Operating Instructions For The Visitor: An Outline For Museum Orientation Exhibits”. History News :July August 1992, Vol 47 #4.
Schon, Randall S. "Exhibit Catalog: Militia Artifacts in the Collections of the New York State Historical Association and The Farmers’ Museum." The Farmers’ Museum 1991.Publication designed by Carolyn B. Wilkinson
Skill Sets
Management
Museum Public Programming, including first-person and third-person interpretation, as well as static exhibits. Specialty in historic subject matter, particularly American Colonial.
Grant writing and grant fund administration.
Fund Raising Campaign planning and oversight.
Public event planning and oversignt.
Information Technology
General Computer Operations, including Windows XP and Macintosh OS; awareness of common network hosted services; basic information security procedures.
Desktop Publishing: page layout, typography and imaging; preparation of material for professional printing.
Data Management: basic database design/modeling, analysis and reporting. Specific experience in FileMaker Pro, peer to peer and web-based.
Education
Web based curriculum design; course administration.
Classroom curriculum design; classroom management, including safety and security best-practices.
Specific practices of Northern Virginia Community College, Strayer University and University of Phoenix. Familiar with military base access protocols for Quantico, Fort Belvoir and Pentagon Reservation.
Teaching Experience
ADJUNCT (PART TIME) FACULTY, Northern Virginia Community College, 15200 Neabsco Mills Road, Woodbridge, Virginia 22191. My supervisor is Dr. Daniel Lewis, Humanities Department Chair 703-878-5716. I began September of 1998 and am presently employed. I teach Humanities 201 & 202, Survey of Western Culture 1 and 2, from prehistory to the present. I also teach Internet courses for students who cannot attend class regularly. I challenge myself to find information that will enhance and expand on the text with an eye toward stimulating my students to relate current events to the past.I teach Art appreciation and have also taught Western Civilization I and II for the History department under Dr. Charles Erico. I use Blackboard, Prentice Hall Test Manager and Respondus to administer online courses. ADJUNCT (PART TIME) FACULTY, Northern Virginia Community College, 15200 Neabsco Mills Road, Woodbridge, Virginia 22191. My supervisor is Dr. Daniel Lewis, Humanities Department Chair 703-878-5716. I began September of 1998 and am presently employed. I teach Humanities 201 & 202, Survey of Western Culture 1 and 2, from prehistory to the present. I also teach Internet courses for students who cannot attend class regularly. I challenge myself to find information that will enhance and expand on the text with an eye toward stimulating my students to relate current events to the past.I teach Art appreciation and have also taught Western Civilization I and II for the History department under Dr. Charles Erico. I use Blackboard, Prentice Hall Test Manager and Respondus to administer online courses. ADJUNCT (PART TIME) FACULTY, Northern Virginia Community College, 15200 Neabsco Mills Road, Woodbridge, Virginia 22191. My supervisor is Dr. Daniel Lewis, Humanities Department Chair 703-878-5716. I began September of 1998 and am presently employed. I teach Humanities 201 & 202, Survey of Western Culture 1 and 2, from prehistory to the present. I also teach Internet courses for students who cannot attend class regularly. I challenge myself to find information that will enhance and expand on the text with an eye toward stimulating my students to relate current events to the past.I teach Art appreciation and have also taught Western Civilization I and II for the History department under Dr. Charles Erico. I use Blackboard, Prentice Hall Test Manager and Respondus to administer online courses.
ADJUNCT (PART TIME) FACULTY, University of Phoenix, I taught adult students courses in Critical Thinking, Introduction to Effective Written Communication, General Studies 101: Introduction to Adult College Learning.ADJUNCT (PART TIME) FACULTY, University of Phoenix, I taught adult students courses in Critical Thinking, Introduction to Effective Written Communication, General Studies 101: Introduction to Adult College Learning.
ADJUNCT (PART TIME) FACULTY, Strayer Online. P.O. Box 487 Newington, VA 22122 1-800-360-1588 I began in the summer of 2001 and teach 10 and 5 week synchronous and asynchronous courses online.
TUTOR, Huntington Learning Center, 14563 Potomac Mills Road, Woodbbridge, VA 22192. 703-494-1515.
SUBSTITUTE TEACHER, Prince William County Schools, Manassas, VA 20108
SUBSTITUTE TEACHER, Alexandria City Public Schools, 2000 North Beauregard Street, Alexandria, Virginia 22311. Audrey Coachman is the substitute teacher coordinator at 703-824-6697. Ms. Coachman is responsible for hiring and dispatching the substitute teachers, but has little other contact with us. Contact Lucretia Jackson at Lyles Crouch Elementary School 703-706-4430 who supervised me during a three-month stint in a classroom of emotionally disturbed and learning disabled students. I began December 1997 and left in October of 2000. I maintain a disciplined classroom following the teacher’s lesson plans. I improvise according to the Virginia Standards of Learning when the teacher has been unable to provide specific plans. I have been present in primary and secondary schools at all grade levels, in libraries and as a special education instructor. I have also administered and scored tests for students who have English as their second language.SUBSTITUTE TEACHER, Alexandria City Public Schools, 2000 North Beauregard Street, Alexandria, Virginia 22311. Audrey Coachman is the substitute teacher coordinator at 703-824-6697. Ms. Coachman is responsible for hiring and dispatching the substitute teachers, but has little other contact with us. Contact Lucretia Jackson at Lyles Crouch Elementary School 703-706-4430 who supervised me during a three-month stint in a classroom of emotionally disturbed and learning disabled students. I began December 1997 and left in October of 2000. I maintain a disciplined classroom following the teacher’s lesson plans. I improvise according to the Virginia Standards of Learning when the teacher has been unable to provide specific plans. I have been present in primary and secondary schools at all grade levels, in libraries and as a special education instructor. I have also administered and scored tests for students who have English as their second language.
VOLUNTEER, Claude Moore Colonial Farm at Turkey Run 6310 Georgetown Pike, McLean, Virginia 22101. 703-442-7557. I demonstrate spinning and dyeing at their Market Fair Programs.
CONSULTANT, Montfair Historic Farm Museum 4626 Slam Gate Road, Crozet, Virginia 22932. Leni Ashmore Sorensen is the Executive Director and can be reached at her home: 804-823-5389. I have worked with her from 1995 to now. I work for Mountfair without financial compensation. I have advised and assisted with the setup of this non-profit foundation including the IRS application for 501(c)3 status, board organization and membership drives. I work in concert with the Executive Director who is a friend of twenty years. She engages my help on a project by project basis. •Conference: Interpreting Slavery; Back to Basics October 9, 10 & 11, 1998. Mountfair hosted the fifth annual conference on this topic. I volunteered Mountfair as the host site, wrote to solicit funds from the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, contacted speakers, developed and distributed promotional materials and assisted with the preparation and setup of the physical plant. I setup the registration database, administered registration procedure and produced conference packets. I tracked funds, estimated costs and fine tuned the budget as we proceeded with the conference planning. •Grants: We were awarded funding for the Back to Basics conference by the Gilder Lehrman Institute for American History.
ADJUNCT (PART TIME) FACULTY, Northeast State Technical Community College at Elizabethton, P.O. Box 696 Elizabethton, Tennessee 37644. My supervisor was Steve Wheeler at the Kingsport campus 216-282-0800. I taught there from January of 1996 to June of 1997. I taught Humanities 111, an overview from pre-history to the present; Humanities 231, Discoveries, Inventions and Explorations a class based on the James Burke book and TV series of the same name and American History 231, 1865 to present.
DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION, Rocky Mount Museum 200 Hyder Hill Road, Piney Flats, Tennessee 37686. My supervisor was Norman O. Burns whose current whereabouts are unknown to me. You may contact DJ Roberts-Jessee. Ms Roberts-Jessee was the Vice President of the Rocky Mount Museum Board of Trustees during my tenure. She may be reached at her home, 423-929-8290. The current Director at Rocky Mount is John Patterson, 615-538-7396. I worked at Rocky Mount from September 1993 to April 1997. I had responsibilities as the on-site caretaker. I needed to secure and patrol the facility after closing and to feed and water the livestock when the site was closed. My compensation included housing, a retirement plan, health and dental insurance. The Director of Education answered to the Executive Director and was responsible for personnel, all public programs and the budget for the education department. • Collections: I oversaw registration, cataloging and cleaning. Part of the collections storage was in the basement of my house and required periodic assessment for humidity control. I assisted an intern with encapsulation of a collection of family documents and with entering objects into a special collections database that included scanned images of the documents. • Programs: I was responsible for daily supervision of the 18th century living history interpretive staff. I kept them supplied with clothing and reproduction objects to interpret daily life. I oversaw daily educational programming for youth audiences visiting from public school systems & homeschools, participating in the Summer Apprentice Programs and as youth volunteers. • Special Events: The Spring and Fall Samplers were school age programs showcasing a series of 18th Century skills. 250 students rotated through a series of 17 demonstration areas. I was responsible for scheduling and coordinating this undertaking. Wooly Days was our annual sheep shearing event. The Summer Apprentice Program was a series of seven week long sessions that provided an opportunity for students to learn a variety of 18th century skills. Harvest Happenings was a fall program showcasing 18th century harvest activities such as soap and candlemaking, pressing apple cider and making apple butter. Haints Hallows and Hayrides, was a Halloween activity. Visitors could make cornshuck dolls, carve pumpkins and take a hayride. Christmas Candlelight Tours was a living history presentation of the Christmas activities of the Cobb household. The events above were in place when I arrived. I managed and coordinated their production. I created and administered special programs for student audiences in conjunction with traveling exhibits from SITES (Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibit Service): Family Folklore, Seeds of Change and Before Freedom Came. I developed and implemented Museum Theme Tours designed to accommodate school groups eager to explore in depth the topics of Time, Medicine, Education & Recreation and Slavery. I developed, scripted and administered The Wedding of Catherine Cobb, a reenactment of the eighteenth century wedding of the daughter of the household. This included detailed research of typical wedding customs and specific information about the bride, groom and their families. An Evening with the Sage: Dinner with Thomas Jefferson was a fund raising dinner set in the atmosphere of Jefferson’s Monticello dining room with actors playing the roles of Tennessee’s Governor Blount and his wife, Patsy and Polly Jefferson with Bob Barker of Colonial Williamsburg as Thomas Jefferson. The meal was served in the French manner followed by a lively and informative conversation with Mr. Jefferson. I conceived the notion, coordinated menu and music and transformed an unlovely room into a candlelit enchantment. It was a most elegant affair. • Conferences: Rocky Mount From the Bottom Rail, was held in February, 1995. I contacted the presenter, Leni Ashmore Sorensen, Ph.D. candidate, William and Mary College, provided her with research materials on the slaves of Rocky Mount, produced and distributed publicity materials, tracked participant interest and scheduled an additional session when needed. • Rocky Mount Museum’s Fourth Annual Winter Conference on the African-American Experience in Appalachia was held in February, 1995. I contacted panelists: Leni Ashmore Sorensen, Ph.D. candidate, William and Mary College, Christy Coleman-Matthews of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Dr. Myra Gordon of East Tennessee State University, researchers Starlet Williams and Mary Alexander & produced and distributed publicity materials. The Association for Living Historical Farms and Agricultural Museums Southeast Regional Annual Conference, Serving Ourselves, was held in February 1994. I developed the program, contacted and engaged speakers, planned the conference menu, assisted with setup of the registration database, administered registration procedure and produced conference packets. • Exhibits: Time Flies: Two Hundred Years of Clocks in Tennessee was Rocky Mount’s contribution to Tennessee’s bicentennial. The museum gallery housed 30 clocks spanning a two hundred year period. I wrote the catalog and label text for the exhibit. The Cobb Family Playroom was an interactive exhibit area, for visiting families that I developed wanted it to be an inviting and cosey space where a parent might read to a child, play a game or work a puzzle. • Grants: I wrote and edited Institute of Museum Services General Operating Support grant each year application was made. We were not funded although our score was significantly inimproved. The Tennessee Humanities Council funded the grant I wrote for Revisiting the Ruins a program presented by Dr. Margaret Ripley Wolfe of East Tennessee State University. •Committee Service: Long-range Strategic Planning and Ethnic Programs. • I also supervised and mentored interns from the Cooperstown Graduate Program, East Tennessee State University, Tusculum College and Northeast State Technical Community College
PROGRAM DIRECTOR, Prickett’s Fort Memorial Foundation, Fairmont, West Virginia 26554 David Elkinton was the Executive Director and is now with the Fairmont United Way. He can be reached at 112 Adams Street, Fairmont, West Virginia 304-366-4550. The number at Prickett’s Fort is 304-363-3030. I worked there from June 1992 to September 1993. The Program Director answered to the Executive Director and was responsible for public programming and the budget for the education department. I oversaw living history interpretive staff in eighteenth and nineteenth century structures and was the acting Executive Director in his absence. •Collections: Assisted with the care and registration of collections. •Programs: I assisted with programs for visiting school groups, the Apple Butter Festival and a summer musical theater. •Publications: Produced Job Prickett House by Elizabeth Trach an intern from the Cooperstown Graduate Program. She researched the nineteenth century house on the property and wrote a monograph that was sold in the museum shop. • Grants: Wrote and edited Institute of Museum Services General Operating Support grant. We were not funded although our score improved dramatically. • Supervised and mentored interns from the Cooperstown Graduate Program and West Virginia State University
