Mary believes passionately in helping her students to learn about themselves and others through reading, studying and reflecting on various writings from around the world. She sees the human condition as a complex, diverse, and beautiful mystery filled with endless possibilities. One of Mary’s gifts is her ability to read literary texts along with her students’ writings with “new eyes.”  She is able to penetrate beneath the surface of things, to challenge both herself and her students to engage in a process of discernment, reflection and dialogue to discover the deeper meaning and purpose of life embedded in a piece of literature. Her life principle is to be a positive force in people’s lives, to help them develop their inner voice and use it to build an intelligent, compassionate, and peaceful world.

Education:

Ph.D. in Humanities, Salve Regina University
     Subjects: Comparative Literature and Maps towards Consciousness in Comparative Religious Traditions
     Dissertation Title: “Re-appropriating the Ancient Monastic Practice of Lectio Divina: A Contemplative
     Pedagogical Method of Inquiry to Experience Wisdom Embedded in the Humanities”
M.A.A.T. in Applied Theology, Our Lady of the Elms College
M.A.T. in Teaching with a Concentration in Literature, Our Lady of the Elms College
B.A. in Communications Studies, Emerson College

Courses Taught 

World Literature 
World Literature: Exploring the Human the Human Condition 
World Literature: The Search for Wisdom 

Composition 2 
What does it mean to be human? 
Writing about Yoga 
Writing about Contemplative Practices 
Writing in the Technological Age 
Oh, The Things You Can Write! Exploring the Craft of Writing with Dr. Seuss 
Writing with Heroes: Once Upon a Time and other Heroic Journey’s 

Composition 1 
Technology: Utopia…Dystopia? 
Various topics and assignments designed around the First-Year Read 

 

Book:  

Lectio Divina as Contemplative Pedagogy: Reappropriating Monastic Practice for the Humanities. New York: Routledge, 2018. 

Book Chapter: 

“Lectio Divina and the Awakening of the Soul” in The Whole Person: Embodying Teaching and Learning through Lectio and Visio Divina.  New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2019. 

“A Three-tiered Monastic Approach to Intersubjective Dialogue for Application within Higher Education” in Catalyzing the field: second-person approaches to contemplative learning and inquiry, SUNY Press, 2019. 

Articles: 

“Human Prescencing in the Techne of a Contemplative Space,” Dev Sanskriti Interdisciplinary International, Vol 15, February 2020.  

“Stitching Together East and West: A Tale of Two Professors,” Dev Sanskriti Interdisciplinary International, Vol 14, July 31, 2019. (Co-authored with Dr. Maureen P. Hall, UMASS Dartmouth) 

“Interfaith Dialogue: The Art of Listening,” The Journal of Contemplative Inquiry, 4 (1) 2017.  

  Co- authored with the Interfaith Director and five students. 

“Reclaiming the Deep Reading Brain in the Digital Age” Radical Pedagogy, 14.2 issue, August 2017. 

“The Gift of the Sublime: A Contemplative Reading of Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein,” Humanities and Technology Association Review, (35), 2016.