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About the Author
Michael Ronan is assistant chair of the English Department at Houston Community
College-Northwest with responsibility for the Westgate Campus. Besides composition
classes, he has taught literature, creative writing, and developmental English.
Interested in alternative teaching methods, he has received various fellowships
and has presented at regional and national conferences. These include fellowships
to develop educational videos and the website for creative journaling featured
in this module. In the spring of 2004, he presented “Want Abstract Thinking? Create an Abstract Classroom” at the International Innovations Conference in San Francisco, a mixed-media presentation that has spawned creative, interactive classrooms nationally. The abstract of this presentation, “Student-Centered Learning and the Traditional Classroom,” is published online by the League for Innovation in the Community College at http://www.league.org/leaguetlc/express/inn0410.html.
In addition to his classroom work, Mr. Ronan chairs Pandora’s Box, a
ten-week documentary film festival dealing with social issues that airs each
semester. He graduated with a BA from Wesleyan University in Connecticut and
with an MA in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Houston.
He served as a Peace Corps Volunteer for three years in Colombia, South America
and lived in Patzcuaro, Michoacan, Mexico for two. Before becoming an instructor,
he worked as a corporate loan officer for what is now J.P. Morgan Chase in Manhattan,
owned his own marketing company in Houston, drove a cab in Boston, and tended
bar in Detroit and Houston.
