BA (Hons), BEd, MA, MEd
Teacher
An academic at heart, Erica discovered her passion for teaching in the midst of a rigorous MA program in English Literature at McMaster University, where her interests in research, reading and scholarly writing merged with her work as a teaching assistant to first year English students. Realizing the joy of teaching and learning, she decided to pause her academic work to pursue a BEd at Nipissing University – a choice that paved forward a rich path of discovery and professional development. Erica spent the first 14 years of her teaching career at The Bishop Strachan School in Toronto, Ontario. It was her great honour to develop the AP Capstone program there, bringing to life the principles of personalization, empowerment, and inquiry in courses that encouraged students to find and exercise their critical voices. She arrived at the doorstep of HTS in 2018 on the winds of change, recognizing the need to continue growing by establishing new roots in the soils of a fresh environment.
Embracing a wide range of interests, Erica is at home in both of her disciplines. While she specializes in British and Medieval history, she is also passionate about Canadian military history, as the proud granddaughter of two World War II veterans. She has also explored hip-hop as a form of New Historicist literature in her previous academic pursuits in English, while simultaneously exploring the powerful texts of the British Modernists.
In her free time, Erica enjoys sketching and water-colouring, reading thought-provoking books, and writing poetry. The next goal for a future chapter of her life story will be to pursue doctoral work in a PhD program.