Dr. Shari Koopmann

Professor of English

Shari Koopmann has taught composition and creative writing at Valencia College since 2000. She is the recipient of the Faculty Association Award for Excellence in Counseling, Teaching, and Librarianship (2019) and the NISOD Excellence Award in Teaching (2010). In addition to teaching, Shari has spent many years working in faculty development, serving as Activity Coordinator for the Teaching/Learning Academy, which provides support on pedagogy, course design, student development, and professional portfolio development for tenure candidates.

Shari is also a social justice educator and facilitates workshops and conversations on inclusiveness in the community for the nonprofit organization, the Peace and Justice Institute (PJI). She is a certified SEED, Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity, facilitator, and has developed and facilitated workshops on such topics as race, privilege, antiracism, intersectionality, bias, and microaggressions.

Shari holds a doctoral degree in education from the University of Central Florida, a master's degree in literature from the University of New Hampshire, and a bachelor’s degree in English from Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania. Her dissertation focused on the relationship between service-learning and civic engagement in the two-year college.

When Shari's not teaching, she’s writing. She has published poetry in small press journals, including Red Hand Press’s Fulva Flava literary annual, Second-Hand Production’s Falling Star Magazine, Day Break Press’s Prism Quarterly, and Ascent Aspirations Magazine’s anthologies Aqua Terra and Close to Quitting Time, in which she was awarded prizes for her poems “Today’s Lesson: Staying Dry” and “Treading Water." Bella Books published her third novel in February of 2019. Shari has also published articles of literary criticism in the Atlantic Literary Review, the Atlantic Critical Review Quarterly, and Studies in Women Writers in English.

Shari lives in Orlando with her wife and two kids, one furry and one significantly less so. :) She has a passion for plant-based nutrition and cooking, graphic novels, true crime, and traveling.



Contact

East Campus
6-115
407-582-2945
skoopman@valenciacollege.edu

Hours