Director
gina.merys@slu.edu
phone: (314) 977-2197
fax: (314) 977-1695
Role in the Reinert Center
As Director, Gina determines vision and strategic direction for the Center; oversees the creation of new programs and collaborations across the University; and manages the daily operations of the Center and its staff.
Areas of Interest and Expertise
- Pedagogical theory, including Ignatian pedagogy and other critical pedagogies
- Course, program, and curriculum design and assessment
- Diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in the university
- Teaching international students
- Creating teaching portfolios, teaching philosophies, and other professional teaching documents
- Developing appropriate approaches to evaluating teaching effectiveness
- Teaching with digital technology
- Designing courses that support academic integrity
- Service Learning and Community-Based Learning
- The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL)
Biographical Information
Prior to joining the Reinert Center in August of 2011, Dr. Merys was an associate professor of English and Director of Composition at Creighton University, where she taught a variety of undergraduate and graduate courses in rhetoric and composition; oversaw the daily operations of the writing program (100-level, upper-level, and graduate-level courses); and served on numerous college and university committees, including the Core Revision Task Force.
While all of Gina's scholarship principally centers on pedagogy, her disciplinary focus is on discourse practices, literacy issues, digital technology, postcolonial and gender studies, critical pedagogies, and the rhetoric of education. Her peer-reviewed publications have appeared in edited collections as well as scholarly journals.
In addition to frequent presentations at academic conferences in her field, such as the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), Gina also frequently attends and presents at The Professional and Organizational Development (POD) conference and other teaching and learning conferences.