Emeritus & Retired Faculty

Introduction to College Writing; Introduction to Literature; Writing in the Disciplines

Keith’s degrees come from Western Kentucky University.  He has taught at WKU from1986 to the present in the capacity of Teaching Assistant, Adjunct, and currently an on-going Instructorship.  Keith has also taught at Lindsey Wilson College under an emergency Instructorship where he taught core courses in general education and World Literatures. He currently serves on the Executive Committee which deals with departmental governance. Keith likes to globe trot a bit, so when he puddle jumps he visits museums, concerts, and other venues, gleaning experiences that ultimately augment classroom discussion

To ensure students a learning environment that will advance them meaningfully toward fulfilling their potentials and obligations as citizens of a rich, complex, and rapidly changing world by nourishing a positive environment where they learn to be critical thinkers and writers who welcome the opportunity for refining their communication skills.  

The unusual dynamic of the ever aging teacher and the always rejuvenated class requires a great deal of ongoing personal reflection on the part of the teacher. In teaching, this requirement demands a balance of being approachable, tolerant, and willing to revisit the mindset of where we were in the more or less remote past.  How else can we be trusted?

I approach teaching with this overarching theme/question: Does the author show us how beauty protects us?  Students learn to explore not just texts but subtexts as well to better understand the foundations of different cultures and values that may or may not be similar to their own.  Simone Weil, in Spiritual Autobiography, insists on “training the attention.”  Whether writing about or reading fiction or nonfiction, we must focus this attention toward as thorough an understanding as possible of what the author means or what we mean.