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f e l l o w s about barbara fahey

A fourth-generation Californian, Barbara Fahey is a product of the California public-school systems. She grew up in Salinas, and attended Hartnell College there after graduating as an honor student from Salinas High School. She earned a BA in English at UCLA in 1965, the first member of her family to graduate from college, and did two years‰ post-graduate study at San Francisco State University After teaching high school in Hayward, California, Barbara entered the graduate program in English at Arizona State University,. As a graduate student she developed an interest in the sociological and psychological questions posed by Nineteenth Century British Fiction. Her dissertation is a study of the Bildungsroman in Victorian fiction. After earning an MA and PhD at ASU, Barbara taught as a visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Arizona, where she discovered her preference for a community college career, with its emphasis on teaching.

In 1984, Barbara joined the English faculty at Scottsdale Community College, where she is presently a Professor of English, Evening and Summer English Department Chair, Co-chair of the Institutional Outcomes Assessment Committee, and an Academic Adviser. She has been involved in various efforts to improve composition instruction, including laying the groundwork for the use of computers in instruction, contributing to the establishment of SCC's Writing Center, and working toward the establishment of linked classes. Barbara credits the encouragement and support of the faculty and administration of SCC for creating a culture of self-evaluation and improvement.

Given the present level of skill and knowledge of undergraduate students, the demands for accountability among legislators and taxpayers, and the headlong advancement of technology, Barbara has come to focus on the development of critical thinking skills as the crucial element of college learning. Her project will center on methods of improving the understanding and teaching of critical thinking skills.

Barbara lives in Scottsdale with her husband, Chuck Rhinard. She has two grown children. Irish history and culture is one of her greatest passions, and she especially enjoys reading about pre-Christian Ireland. She spends as much time as possible outside, hiking, biking, and playing with her two dogs. Every summer she and Chuck, daughter Carrie and son Morgan go camping in the Sierra Nevada mountains in the same area where generations of her family have been camping since 1920. Barbara is a bird-watcher who is as fascinated by sparrows and hawks as by more exotic species. In her next life she wants to be a biologist.

f e l l o w s about barbara fahey