Meet our instructors
Ashley Colby, PhD
I’m an Environmental Sociologist who studied at Washington State University, the department that founded the subdiscipline. In my book I explore subsistence food production as a potentially revolutionary act. I am interested in and passionate about the myriad creative ways in which people are forming new social worlds in resistance to the failures of late capitalism and resultant climate disasters. I am a qualitative researcher so I tend to focus on the informal spaces of innovation. I got my MA and PhD in sociology at WSU, and my BA in Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Chicago. Before my current life I was once an itinerant overland international traveler, Chicago Tribune travel writer, and a long-haul, 18-wheel-driving trucker. I am now a mom to three beautiful girls, roommate to one husband (ha) and custodian to 2 cats 2 dogs 2 cows and 5 chickens. I am now focused on doing anything I can to foment local, decentralized networks of people who can get us to the next iteration of society, and fast. The most urgent of these initiatives is SuLoFair, a cooperative startup whose mission is to accelerate local economies.
I can teach courses from beginning sociology through upper-level classes on: globalization, food and agriculture, environment, sustainability, inequality, social movements, family and gender.
Patrick Fitzgerald, MA
I have been a Spanish teacher for over a decade at both the high school and college levels in the United States. I have my BA in Spanish Teaching from the University of Illinois and my MA in Foreign Languages and Cultures from Washington State University. Along with different kinds of language instruction (formal grammar and/or immersion training), I have also taught Spanish language literature and art, and currently teach AP Spanish Literature through Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth. I almost got a hole in one once, and I used to be able to dunk.
