Margaret P. Monteverde
Hi. I'm Dr. Maggie Monteverde. I could begin my
personal profile by introducing myself via a string of titles and
degrees, but you can look at my Vita if you want to see those.
Besides, if you've found this statement by surfing the
net, you've already proven yourself to be more adept than
I am at a technology that in the twenty-first century is going to
prove a lot more valuable than any of my credentials I suspect.
But I suppose my techno-incompetent status is in keeping with my
position as the resident medievalist at Belmont. Or maybe it is
just that as a person who also enjoys, and sometimes even gets a
chance to teach, science fiction, I keep hoping I can wake up
when the revolution is over. I was tempted not to create a
web-page for myself [in fact, I only created the text a colleague
did the magic], but I figured that as Associate Dean of
Humanities, as well as the representative for Belmont's
study abroad programs in English-speaking countries
Study Abroad
representing Belmont's consortial relationship with the
Co-operative Center for Study Abroad
CCSA , chances
were good that a number of people visiting our web-site might
have questions to ask me or perhaps even questions about me.
Maggie
Monteverde
So, who am I? Well, first and foremost, despite the
fancy-sounding titles, I am a teacher. That's why
I've included my teaching philosophy and goals here, to
give you some idea of what I mean when I profess to teach.
Digressing briefly, as medievalists are wont to do, I suspect
that is not how you are used to hearing the word profess used.
Today we refer to professional schools and professional
education. Belmont's vision statement states that we
'bring together the best of liberal arts and professional
education.' However, back in the medieval universities,
teaching WAS to profess, as in, to claim knowledge of something.
So, teaching is my profession.
What do I claim knowledge of? In 1978, I graduated from Chatham
College in Pittsburgh with a B.A. in English. The focus of my
graduate education was medieval studies. In 1980, I received my
M.A. in English Language and Medieval Literature from Leeds
University in England. In 1988, I completed my Ph.D. at Ohio State
University, writing my dissertation on the concept of history in
early English literature. These interests still form the
underpinning of much of what I teach at Belmont: History of the
English Language, Chaucer, Medieval Literature, Arthurian Romance,
and the first half of British Literature. However, one of the
wonderful things about teaching at a smaller school which focuses
on teaching more than research is the opportunity to explore areas
in which one has interest and/or secondary training. So, I also
teach, when the occasion arises, courses on war literature,
literature of love, drama, and yes, science fiction. I also still
teach Composition, and not because I have to - I enjoy working with
students as they develop their skills as thinkers and writers. It
is the same reason I enjoy working with students in our Honors and
Master's programs as they write theses. In recent years,
I've also done a lot of team teaching with faculty in
History, Biology, and Religion and am currently involved in the
Linked Cohort Program in our BELL core.
Another area to which I dedicate a great deal of time, and something in which I wish I could involve every student, is study abroad. When I was in college, I spent my junior year in London. I still consider it one of the high points of my life. One of the great pleasures of my career thus far at Belmont has been encouraging students to bring their learning to life through an experience in another country. I have traveled with and taught students in Ireland, Scotland, England, Australia and New Zealand. I spent a fall semester teaching students from Belmont and our CCSA consortium in Cambridge and followed that up by serving as an exchange professor in Dresden, Germany. My husband and I even took eight students with us on our honeymoon and ten years later went 'as students' with our study abroad program to China! I tell my students that the greatest value of study abroad is that while allowing you to experience places you have only studied before it offers you the best way to come to know yourself truly: only by placing your cultural inheritance against another background can you hope to see it, assess its value, cultivate those aspects you consider important, and change those aspects you find troubling. Of course, ultimately, that is the primary goal of education.
I guess that's a good note to end on ...except to add
that in addition to all that highbrow stuff, I also enjoy movies
and television [yes, I've watched all the Star Trek
spinoffs], singing [I sing in the Cathedral Choir of Christ
Episcopal Cathedral], travel, gardening [I find it cheaper than
therapy - though only just], and cooking. In fact, if you were to
come to Belmont, you might have an opportunity to participate in
one of the teas I sponsor for CCSA, or in a medieval feast for one
of my courses, or in a family language dinner in History of the
English language. Food is life - for the body and the mind.
email:
Maggie Monteverde
phone: 615.460.6197
office: WHB 207C
