Purpose-Driven
My life will be dedicated to creating inclusive communities that foster compassion and lasting relationships–particularly with students. The passion within me will be directed towards serving students and supporting blossoming leaders by giving individual and genuine attention to all. I want to spend my life being known for the amount of heart–and helpfulness–I give to my students who, to me, will be a family that can share their joy, struggles, and lives together.
For all my adult life, I have been called to educate and mentor students. In fact, I wrote my first “vision statement” for my life when I was 19 years old, and in it, I imagined a world where I would work with students in a meaningful capacity:
From teaching middle schoolers to mentoring diverse student leaders at Vanderbilt University to leading college classrooms at the University of Maryland and Furman University, my 11+ years of experience in education has been consistently diverse and always purpose driven. Each shift in my career has brought me closer to living out my life’s vision. Through it all, the one thing that remains true is that I fundamentally believe that students can and will positively transform our communities when given the tools to do so. As such, my job as an educator is to lead and empower students to question, critique, and engage in the world around them. These learning experiences, I believe, crucially prepare them to be critical thinkers and strong leaders in our communities.
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.” - Margaret Mead
Community-Oriented
From the time I was young, I was known as the empathetic problem-solver; and, as I grew, I channeled that energy into wanting to advocate for stronger, more equitable communities. In the past, I have led service trips, participated in justice workshops, partnered with community organizations, facilitated dialogues, and protested for socio-political change.
At the University of Georgia, I double majored in Communication (B.A.) and Public Relations (B.A.), but some of my most meaningful experiences were extracurricular as I held active roles in several leadership and service organizations.
I attended Vanderbilt University for a M.Ed. in Higher Education Administration, where I trained with the goal of one day working in a service or civic engagement office for a university. I wanted to encourage students to be active citizens and compassionate leaders. However, as I learned more about the structure of higher education, I began to envision my role as a professor leading service-learning experiences in the classroom.
To support this dream, I decided to pursue my Ph.D. in Communication given the interest I always had in the field of rhetoric and social change. I took a big risk with this career change but it almost immediately paid off. I was selected to be in the inaugural Do Good Institute Faculty Fellowship cohort, where I learned alongside the leading experts in service-learning pedagogy. Through this experience, I developed a best practice civic engagement version of the public speaking course, which I still teach to this day.
I am proudly an alumni of the following programs:
Family-Focused
As the daughter of an immigrant, and the oldest of three girls, my family has always been central to my sense of identity and belonging.
As I lean into my new identity as a mom of two young kids, I am invested in doing my own personal healing work, and to prioritize my health and the overall wellness of my family. In academia, there can be a lot of noise around what it means to be a mother and a scholar, but I know that the qualities that make me a great mom are also the same ones that make me a great professional. It is my greatest joy to be both “mama” and “Dr. FP.”
When I’m not on campus, you can find me taking a walk with the family around our neighborhood, having a dance party in the kitchen, or exploring local breweries and ranking them for not only the beers but the potential play space for the kiddos.