Michelle Hager

Michelle Hager is the Writing Center Director and a lecturer in the Department of English and Comparative Literature. She earned her B.A. and M.A. in English from San Jose State University, and she has been teaching college-level writing for nine years. Prior to becoming the Writing Center Director, she served for four years as the Writing Center Associate Director. In this position, she developed the web presence of the Center and supervised the program for lower-division Assistant Writing Specialists. She became Writing Center Director in July 2013. She was honored as the Lecturer of the Year in the English Department for the 2011-2012 academic year.

She teaches English 1A and 1B (Composition), English 7 (Critical Thinking), English 22 (Science Fiction and Fantasy Lit.), English 103 (Modern English Grammar), English 106 (Editing for Writers), English 112A (Children's Literature), and English 112B (Young Adult Literature). Every semester, she participates as a faculty interviewer for students hoping to enter the English single-subject teaching credential program, and she has worked as a table leader for the English 1A and 1B final exam holistic grading sessions. She has also been a WST reader. As a student in the M.A. program, she sat on the English Department Curriculum Committee and worked as both a graduate assistant and a teaching associate.

Though most of her teaching experience has been at SJSU, she also taught courses at Santa Clara University as an Adjunct Lecturer in 2006. She belongs to the National Council for Teachers of English, and she enjoys the daily adventures of the teaching profession.

Michelle is also the Writing Center webmistress, so please contact her (Michelle.Hager@sjsu.edu) with any questions or comments about the website.

Fall 2013 Office Hours: 
TBD

Please note that hours are subject to change due to meetings. 

Cindy Baer

Gloria Collins

Gloria Collins earned her B.A. and M.A. degrees in English at San Jose State University. With Dr. Virginia de Araujo as her mentor, she taught English 1A-F and 1B-F, composition for foreign speakers, when she was a Teaching Assistant in 1979. In 1980, she continued with this assignment until the special "F" sections were discontinued in 1999. She continues to teach composition courses in the English Department and also coordinates the Writing Skills Test.

She is an experienced holistic reader for tests like the TOEFL, EPT, WST, and other abbreviated exams too numerous to fog your mind with. Gloria is a member of the English Department's Composition Committee, Policy Committee, and the university Writing Requirements Committee.

In her year as Faculty-in-Residence at the Writing Center (2008-2009), she compiled a report about how the Graduation Writing Assessment Requirement (GWAR) is enforced throughout the California State University system. In her second semester, she proposed a new writing course for students having trouble passing the Writing Skills Test.

She is secretary of the California Faculty Association executive board at SJSU and a union activist.

She is a published poet and hopes to complete her second novel manuscript before she gets much older.

Fall 2013 Office Hours: 
TBD

Martin J. Leach, Ph.D

Martin Leach (Marty), a Lecturer in the Department of Meteorology and Climate Science, started teaching at San Jose State University in the Fall of 2008 after a nearly 30 year career with Brookhaven National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He has a B.S in Physics from Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, an M.S. in Physics from Drexel University, and a Ph.D in Atmospheric Science from North Carolina State University.  

Dr. Leach participated in several field experiments while at the DOE labs, including acting as the co-field director of a large international experiment in the summer of 2003. He also participated in and supervised large numerical modeling experiments and data analysis projects. He has traveled to China and Russia as a Department of Energy consultant, exchanging information and critiquing experiments,

He is the author or co-author of several scientific papers that have appeared in professional journals. He was a guest editor of a special issue of Journal of Applied Meteorology, containing papers analyzing results from that 2003 experiment, and he has been a peer reviewer for numerous articles in several different professional journals.

He has taught several courses in Meteorology and Climate Science while at SJSU, ranging from introductory general education courses to graduate level courses for majors in Meteorology.  Since arriving at SJSU in fall 2008, he has been the primary teacher of the METR-100W course. 

Fall 2013 Office Hours:
TBD