Leadership Institute Mentors
Leadership Institute Mentors
Nancy Ybarra
Nancy Ybarra has been an instructor of basic skills English at Los Medanos College for 27 years. She teaches integrated reading and writing courses at the precollegiate level. She has been a leader in the design, implementation and coordination of the LMC Developmental Education program for the last 10 years, and co-coordinator of the college wide assessment program, the Teaching and Learning Project. She has also served as professional development coordinator, Title III Activity Director, and co-coordinator of the SPECC grant, a project that focused on faculty inquiry in teaching communities. Nancy has a Master’s degree in education from St. Mary’s College, and a certificate in the teaching of reading at the postsecondary level from San Francisco State.
Erin Denney
Dr. S. Erin Denney is an instructor and the Basic Skills Coordinator for the English Department at City College of San Francisco, where she has taught since 1997. Dr. Denney received her B.A. in English from the University of California at Berkeley and her M.A. and Ph.D. in English from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. She also attended the Kellogg Institute for Developmental Educators in 2005.
Entering first as an emergency hire, then working her way up the ranks through part time to full time and finally tenured faculty member at City College of San Francisco, Dr. Denney focused her attention on the needs of basic skills students, and helped to transform her department by fostering faculty inquiry at the basic skills level, implementing research-based effective pedagogy, working to combine student services with instruction, and pushing for targeted hiring for basic skills faculty.
Through separate grants from the Koret and Carnegie Foundations, Dr. Denney has worked to create intensive combine reading and writing classes for the lowest level of composition students at City College of San Francisco. She has also presented at the annual conference of the National Association for Developmental Education and the Student Success Conference on the subjects of combined reading and writing courses and also on the use of data in developing pedagogy. Dr. Denney was also instrumental in planning for and convening a committee of statewide stakeholders, experts, and practitioners to help plan and create what has since become the CCC BSI 2009.
Brock Klein
Brock Klein is an associate professor of ESL and director of Pasadena City College’s Teaching and Learning Center (TLC). Dr. Klein has managed and evaluated a variety of learning community and career pathway programs and has facilitated faculty inquiry groups for basic skills faculty and administrators. He has also co-written numerous successful grant proposals, including a US Department of Education Title V grant, a National Science Foundation grant, the Hewlett/Carnegie Foundations grant, “Strengthening Pre-Collegiate Education in Community Colleges” (SPECC), and the Irvine Foundation grant, “Student Support Partnership Integrating Resources and Education” (SSPIRE).Dr. Klein received his Master’s in Teaching English as a Second Language from the University of Southern California and his Doctorate in Education from the University of California at Los Angeles. He has presented extensively on basic skills program management, evaluation, and professional development. More information about Pasadena City College’s Teaching and Learning Center can be found at www.pasadena.edu/tlc.
