My Teaching Statement

I see teaching as one integral part of academic life. My passion for teaching is motivated by my personal experience as a student, a teaching assistant, a section instructor, a curriculum developer, and a mentor for undergraduate students. I believe instructors’ areas of research can translate into more effective teaching. My research on multicultural community building, nonprofit organizations’ interorganizational alliance network, and corporate CSR has been published on peer-reviewed journals, won top paper prizes at major communication conferences, and they have also equipped me with solid knowledge in teaching courses along these lines.

I have also gained extensive teaching experience at both private and public universities. Between 2008 and 2010, I taught large-size discussion sections (with 20-50 enrollment for each section) for four consecutive quarters at the Department of Communication, University of Washington. The courses I assisted in teaching included two undergraduate core courses, Introduction to Communication and Interpersonal Communication, and one senior elective course Intercultural Communication. For all these courses, I developed my own section syllabi, designed weekly assignments, and graded students’ exams and term paper projects. As a degree requirement, I also received formal communication pedagogical training (two one-credit courses) in the process of completing my Master degree.

The Ph.D. program at USC has further enriched my teaching experience. In a university with the largest number of international students in the United States, I have worked with students from diverse backgrounds. This includes students from different states of the United States, various parts of the world, full time students, athlete students, and back-to-school professionals. I have learned to embrace diversity in the student body, and take full consideration of different backgrounds, cultural sensitivities and interests, so that I could make class materials better relate to students’ lives and future careers. In the past few years, I have worked as teaching assistant for three courses, Communication as Social Science, Communication and Mass Media, and Persuasion. Based on my excellent teaching record, I was selected as lead teaching assistant for two semesters, with responsibilities including giving guest lectures, developing curriculum and session plans, and provide orientation to new doctoral teaching assistants to various courses.