About Emily
M.A. in Composition · Twelve Years Teaching Writing and Composition in Higher Education · Grant development strategist with more than $20 million in federal, state, local, and foundation funding secured and developed.
THE STUDY
12 Years Teaching writing and composition in higher education
$20M+ in Funding developed and secured across federal, state, county, local, and foundation funding programs
Federal Grant Experience - Success with major federal agencies, including the Department of Education, Health and Human Services, and Department of Labor and many others
Community & Technical College Specialist - Expertise in workforce development, institutional capacity building, and grant strategy for two-year colleges
Grant Systems & Institutional Strategy
Designed and implemented institution-wide grant development systems, processes, documentation, and complex workflow at multiple colleges
Institutional Leadership - Current accreditation and Institutional Effectiveness committee member supporting continuous improvement and organizational effectiveness
THE STAIRCASE
I came to grant development by way of the classroom. Consequently, I have never quite thought of it as fundraising. It has always been more like the facilitation of steps and generating and producing important ideas.
For twelve years, I taught writing, English, and composition in post-secondary education. Most of my students were doing some version of the same hard thing by trying to turn a half-formed thought into something someone else could actually follow. I built my teaching and classroom around the idea that writing is a way of thinking, not just a way of presenting thoughts you'd already had. Students often showed up unsure or just didn’t trust their own ideas and left able to say what they meant, clearly enough that other people took it seriously.
The writing itself was rarely the hard part. The hard part was in the translation of taking something that mattered enormously to the person who dreamed it up, and making whoever they were writing for understand why it should matter to them too.