English professors from El Paso Community College are charting new territory in higher education, securing spots in the Great Questions Foundation's Faculty Fellowship. Professors Margie Nelson Rodríguez, Yasmín Ramírez, and Jorge Gomez emerged as the selected few after a rigorous national competition, with EPCC announcing they were among only six teams chosen from a field of 26 teams and 79 faculty members.
Their selection not only underscores the vitality of the community college's academic environment but also brings the promise of a cutting-edge, discussion-based approach to the core curriculum. With pride in their collars, Nelson Rodríguez commented, celebrating her colleagues' creativity and dedication, "I'm also very proud to be working with my colleagues, Jorge and Yasmín, who are extremely hardworking, creative, and committed to student success," as per EPCC News.
At the heart of the fellowship lies a focus on influential texts and the cultivation of critical thinking and conversation among students. This commitment to dialogue over rote learning will see EPCC's fellows working alongside their national peers in redesigning curriculum and teaching practices over the next two years. These efforts aim to foster expansive educational opportunities for community college students.
As part of the benefits, EPCC's group, according to EPCC News, stands to gain curriculum redesign grants worth up to $50,000 to boost English courses. With an aim to ground literary studies in the real world, Ramírez outlines the visionary plan for change: "We want to transform ENGL 1302 into a course where research, reading, and discussion connect to our students' lived experiences."
