Biography

Michael Ronan is Division Chair of the English, Philosophy, Communication, and Humanities Departments at Houston Community College-Northwest.

 

He teaches composition, literature, and humanities classes. Interested in alternative teaching methods, Mr. Ronan has developed pilot classrooms that shift the learning environment from a lecture-based teaching paradigm to a learning-centered one.  For this and other efforts, he has received various fellowships and has presented at regional and national conferences. These include fellowships to develop educational videos and a website for creative journaling featured as part of the Texas Collaborative for Teaching Excellence. In the spring of 2004, he presented "Want Abstract Thinking? Create an Abstract Classroom" at the International Innovations Conference in San Francisco, a mixed-media presentation that helped spawn creative, interactive classrooms nationally. In 2006, he spoke on creative classroom development as a member of a panel at the American Association of Community Colleges' national convention in Long Beach.  In 2009, he lead a three member panel presenting papers on "Global Issues: Closing the Divide between Locals and Transnationals in Freshman Composition" at the international CCCC convention in San Francisco.

 

In addition to his classroom work, Mr. Ronan initiated and formerly managed Pandora's Box Film and Speaker Series, an eight to ten-week extra-curricular event at the Katy Campus, which to this day, each semester, features documentary films and speakers addressing social, political, and cultural issues. He has  also been faculty advisor to the Underground Film and Events Club, which won the Student Organization of the Year award at the May 2007 NW College Awards Banquet. He earned an MA in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Houston and graduated with a BA from the College of Social Studies at Wesleyan University in Connecticut where he also was captain of the varsity heavyweight crew.  He served as a Peace Corps Volunteer for three years in Colombia, South America, and lived in an artists' colony in Patzcuaro, Michoacan, Mexico for two.  Before becoming an instructor, he worked as a corporate loan officer for what is now J.P. Morgan Chase in Manhattan, owned his own marketing company in Houston, drove cab in Boston, and tended bar in Detroit and Houston.

 

In 2011, he won The Eagle Award for exceptional faculty; in 2008, a NISOD award for teaching excellence; and in 2007, Teacher of the Year by the Houston West Chamber of Commerce.

 

Outside interests include hiking, backpacking, practicing yoga, playing golf, and traveling.  He has two children, Nick and Vanessa, in their twenties, who currently reside in New York and Dublin.  His wife, Pam Olson, is a graphic artist and metal sculptor.