I enjoy watching students wrestle with texts and big questions, because it is in these efforts that they truly begin to grow as people.
Students who study education at Transylvania do not merely study techniques and methods. Rather, as associate professor Amy Maupin puts it, the study of education at Transylvania is a “truly unique experience” in which students develop a “deep theoretical understanding of education and its many issues.”
Those students will also be able to articulate a philosophy of teaching and learning that is “grounded in many of the other disciplines that intersect with ours,” she says, disciplines such as sociology, philosophy, history, anthropology, English, and the arts. All of these, Maupin adds, have an important place in the study of education.
In her role of teaching future teachers, Maupin has adopted a philosophy centered on the notion that she must create a “special space that is safe and brimming with curious energy” and anchored in the belief that teaching is an “act of love.”
“Because I value my students as whole human beings, and because I see knowledge as something more than static facts, figures, and textbook materials, I believe that teaching is an act of love that empowers students to construct meaning from the disciplines as they connect to their lives,” she says.
It should come as no surprise, then, that Maupin most enjoys her engagement with students. “It is rare, indeed, that I leave a class session without feeling injected with a good dose of what it means to be a college learner today.”
Academic History
Ed.D., Curriculum and Instruction, University of Tennessee, 2000
M.A., Eastern Kentucky University, 1996
B.A., Eastern Kentucky University, 1991
Courses Taught at Transy
Learning Theory and Pedagogy
Women in Education
Content Area Literacy
Literature for Young Adults
Young Adolescents
Creating Middle Level Learning Environments
Non-Western Enculturation
Senior Seminar
First-Year Research Seminar
Areas of Specialization
Contemplative education
Young adult literature
Recent Publications
“From the Scroll to the Screen: Why Letters, Then and Now, Matter.” English Journal, Vol. 105, No. 4, March 2016.
Professional Memberships
National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE)
Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of the NCTE
Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education
Association for Middle Level Education
American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education
Association of Independent Liberal Arts Colleges for Teacher Education
Awards
Bingham Award for Excellence in Teaching
2016 English Journal Edwin M. Hopkins Award, Honorable Mention