Dr. Katherine Hoffman

Katherine Hoffman is a Midwesterner from a small college background. She grew up in and around Denison University in Ohio, where her father was a professor, and went to Carleton College in Minnesota as an undergraduate. Her Masters and Ph.D. are from Northwestern University just north of Chicago. She has been at Roanoke College since 1989, and teaches a variety of courses in Renaissance Literature, composition, British Literature, Humanities, women writers, Utopian literature, world literature and journal writing.

One of her major service areas is faculty development; as Director for several years of the Center for Teaching and Learning, she developed seminars, workshops and resources for the Roanoke College faculty to use to improve their teaching skills. She was also the leader for its first three years of the Faculty-Staff Learning Community, which brings together faculty and staff to innovate new programs around a common theme. She earned the college’s Innovation Award for this work.

Her ongoing scholarly focus on Renaissance women writers has been nurtured in three National Endowments for the Humanities Institutes over the years. Her interests in pedagogy and in Renaissance literature have become increasingly allied, and she has presented paper s on effective teaching in the Renaissance field.

Dr. Hoffman will be spending 2006-07 on a Fulbright Lectureship, teaching English at the Open University of Sri Lanka.