Faculty

Author: The Crusader Staff Writer Kate Saxe

Dr. Riadi is a Language and Theology instructor. She was born and raised in the countryside of France but ultimately moved to the United States in her college years. She attended the University of Vermont to get her Master of Education and Modern Languages, and then proceeded to Georgia State University to get her PhD in Philosophy of Education and Psychology. She also has a Doctorate in Theology and Pastoral Counseling.

Dr. Riadi is a former nun, has worked in nonprofit grant writing and fundraising, and has taught a variety of classes in many different states and countries. She came to Belmont Abbey in 2016 and has decided to call this her home. Dr. Riadi enjoys teaching the French language, theology, and psychology. She is a wonderful professor to have and wants nothing but success for her students.

When I asked Dr. Riadi to describe her experience teaching at the Abbey and a great memory she has here and she said, “My experience of teaching at the Abbey has been very positive and fulfilling. I love serving at the Abbey, teaching and interacting with students, fellow teachers, colleagues, and the community of monks. I have quite a few memorable moments at the Abbey; from celebrating the graduation of some of my students, to sharing times of community worship on feast days, to enjoying family picnics, as well as participating in prayers and devotionals at the Grotto of our Lady of Lourdes. I also appreciate the fact that BAC remains a faith based Catholic institution that welcomes everyone with the traditional Benedictine hospitality and acceptance that have been ongoing for thousands of years.”

I also asked her what drives her passion for teaching and she replied, “Ever since I was a child, I aspired to become a teacher. I have always been an avid reader and a knowledge seeker who appreciated great books, classical education, languages and literatures of various countries. … Pedagogy was also a significant part of my personal interest in teaching. Helping others discover their talents, what motivates them, and accompanying them on their own journey of learning about their faith, a foreign language, or exploring any other academic field within my scope of expertise, have always been extremely rewarding to me. It makes me so happy whenever some of my graduating students get back in touch to share their success stories, whether in their personal or professional life, and often refer to some of the “aha moments” they experienced in their learning process. In my case, teaching is my vocation and not just my job. … I pray and hope to thank all those who helped me become the person I am today. I am and will remain grateful to Belmont Abbey College for giving me the opportunity to practice what I do and love best!”

Dr. Riadi is truly a great example of the amazing faculty we have here at Belmont Abbey!

This article was originally posted in the Spring 2023, Issue 3 of The Crusader Newspaper. Download the full issue here.

Author: The Crusader Staff Writer Robin Wiley

Erin Jensen is the faculty advisor of the school newspaper and an Associate Professor of English. You may be familiar with Jensen, as she often gives presentations on campus on creating an impressive LinkedIn profile or writing an attention-grabbing resume. In addition to being a professor, she is the Director of the Writing Center, the faculty advisor of the school newspaper, the Director of the Undergraduate Research Conference, manages the Social Media and Digital Communication minor and the Writing minor, and she also presents at conferences and publishes journal articles.

Getting to know Jensen over the last two and a half years that I have been finishing my degree at BAC has been inspiring. Erin, as she prefers to be called by her students, has encouraged me and provided me with opportunities and a belief that I, an adult student returning to finish my degree, can accomplish writing and creating digital art tasks that I did not initially think I was capable of. Erin is very positive, encouraging, and passionate.

She came to Belmont Abbey College in 2019 from Nevada and brought with her much experience and extensive education. Erin is a Utah native, born and raised in Salt Lake City. She has lived in Minnesota and Nevada and has visited almost every state in the country. If you are fortunate enough to take one of her classes, you can ask her which states she has yet to visit. Globally, she lived in both Taiwan and China and learned Mandarin Chinese so she “could talk to people.”

She is a graduate of The University of Utah with a BA in English, an MEd in English Education, and a Ph.D. in Education/Rhetoric and Composition. She was a college athlete and competed in swimming and waterpolo. Because she loves learning, she decided to pursue another degree and is starting a Professional and Technical Communication graduate degree this summer. She still plans to teach full time at the Abbey.

I asked Erin if her goal had always been teaching at the college level and if she had any mentors during her academic and professional journey. Erin stated, “I wanted to be a high school English teacher and achieved that goal; however, after teaching for several years, I realized that while I loved teaching writing, I did not like teaching literature. At that point, I returned to school to earn my Ph.D. to become a college professor. During my Ph.D. program, I taught freshman writing, business communications, and writing across the curriculum classes.” As for having mentors, Erin stated, “My grandfather was a university psychology professor, and my mother is a college lecturer in the writing department. My twin brother is a sports psychology professor in California.” It appears that Erin has had strong mentors guiding her on her journey.

When asked what she has appreciated about being involved in the English department, she responded, “I appreciate having the opportunity to add several new classes and create new minors. I have been involved in creating and directing the Writing Center and appreciate the opportunities to get involved in the college and student support efforts. I have enjoyed teaching all of the classes that I teach including RH 104 as I have the opportunity to see students improve their writing skills through the semester. I also like EN 106, Introduction to Digital and Multimedia Art. This class involves all the topics I am interested in, including graphic design, AI art, photo editing, and Canva. I really enjoy teaching EN 362 Writing for Social Media as this class involves topics including marketing, social media management, the major social media platforms, and some website and SEO design. I created the class to give students a chance to engage in social media in a professional way and create a final project that would provide them with both experiences. But, I also love all the classes I teach.” She also teaches journalism, Editing and Writing for Publication, Professional and Technical Writing, and various other writing-based classes.

As a current student of Jensen, I can attest that she is passionate about what she teaches and she advocates for her students by creating new content, staying up to date on current trends and applications, and encouraging her students to explore real-life employment situations and opportunities. Erin Jensen was instrumental in bringing my internship to fruition with a global company that had not done internships in many years.

Erin was involved in helping to coach the triathlon team here at the Abbey for almost two years. “I had initially contacted the coaches as I am a swim coach, and triathlon was the closest to swimming I could get. My original plan was to help with swimming, but I also helped to arrange competitions and have contact with the NCAA. I enjoyed my experience helping to coach the triathlon team, but am also happy that they have a new head coach this year.”

Erin is actively involved in her own research, conference presentations, and publications. She mainly focuses on digital writing and recently published several articles focused on using memes as pedagogical tools. She has two conference presentations scheduled next month that are both focused on ways to use social media in writing classes. I recently co-authored a chapter with her and twelve other students on ways to encourage undergraduate students to co-author with professors. Last semester, Erin co-authored with nine Abbey student-athletes an article that appeared in the online Sports Journal.

As a student, I have found that Jensen possesses true joy in her spirit and a love of learning, enabling her to teach others to love learning. I also appreciate her focus on application-based projects and assignments. We are happy to have her teaching at the Abbey.

This article was originally posted in the Spring 2023, Issue 3 of The Crusader Newspaper. Download the full issue here.

Author: The Crusader Staff Writers

Did you know that as a student you have access to a paid account for Grammarly? Grammarly will check your grammar, spelling, sentence structure, and even check your citations in MLA, APA, and Chicago.

Erin Jensen, Associate Professor of English, said that she loves Grammarly and uses it for everything she writes. She encourages all of her students to use Grammarly as she said, “Grammarly is a learning tool that provides additional support and suggestions to students on how and where to revise their writing. I appreciate that Grammarly provides suggestions, but it is still up to the writer to decide to use or ignore those suggestions. I also like the new feature of helping with MLA, APA, and Chicago citations.” She also said, “I encourage all students to use their provided Grammarly account.”

We asked some fellow students about how they used Grammarly and this was the response?

“I use Grammarly for everything, I have it downloaded to my browser, so it is implemented in all of my writing. I also use Grammarly to check for plagiarism in my essays to ensure I correctly cite my quotes. It will also suggest ways to reword sentences” -Megan, Data Analytics major

“I like how it finds weak words in your sentence or paragraph and suggests more vital, compelling words to help strengthen your sentences. Grammarly, to me, is like a close friend that wants to help you the entire way and watch you accomplish essays or papers that I didn’t think you could achieve on your own.” -Bella, Marketing major

“Grammarly is a very good tool for checking punctuation and rephrasing sentences etc. However, sometimes with long papers, it can be a little picky about word choice. I often try to use connecting words to make my sentences flow, but Grammarly often tries to make the sentences shorter and always suggests simple and short words. Nevertheless, I still like to use it because it points out many things that my eye does not pick up on. It is nice to have a checker in the background.” -Anna, Criminal Justice major

“I really love using Grammarly. Especially for my research papers as well as my reflection papers. I would type so fast and obviously have some grammatical errors and Grammarly fix everything for me. I would also consider Grammarly the best tool in terms of helping you to have a flowing paper.” Ricky, Computer Science major

“English is not my first language and I need all the help I can get.” – Business major

“I use Grammarly for almost everything I write. I find it very useful for emails and essays. Sometimes it gets a little annoying, and I don’t think all the corrects are accurate, but for somebody like me, it definitely helps spelling-wise. When I’m typing an email really fast, it is easy to turn my Grammarly on and make sure it looks good; when I’m writing essays, I like using it because I can check my formatting and grammar that I might not have noticed.” -Sarah, Education major

This article was originally posted in the Spring 2023, Issue 3 of The Crusader Newspaper. Download the full issue here.