Testimonials

I am pleased that my friend and colleague Bridgette Yaxley asked me to write a professional recommendation in support of her skills as an Instructional Designer and Online Learning Specialist. I have worked closely with Bridgette in a number of professional capacities over the last dozen years or so. She has my highest professional recommendation. The University Writing Program at Rochester Institute of Technology is currently in the highly rewarding but challenging process of rethinking our curriculum to better meet the needs of the various stakeholders in our program (students, faculty, administration, ourselves). The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the rise of polarization and conspiratorial thinking, and the impoverished standardized high school curriculum increases the need for the fundamental work that we do in our program, which is crucial to addressing these concerns.

As a student-centered instructor with a long and successful history of working with RIT students, she strikes me as a talented and caring educator with the enviable ability to work effectively with a wide spectrum of students, including large populations of Deaf/Hard of Hearing students and international students. I have also worked with her on the Policies & Procedures Committee and have found her to be an insightful and enthusiastic colleague.

Perhaps Bridgette’s most compelling resource as a colleague is her extensive pedagogical experience with online teaching and learning. I emailed her numerous times with requests for help as I (undoubtedly) fumbled my way through the unprecedented COVID semester last spring. Higher education has crossed a threshold with online learning, which now appears to be a permanent fixture of our educational landscape. Bridgette’s willingness to teach online courses for the UWP and her enthusiastic commitment to share her expertise as our online educational consultant during the pandemic has made her strategically valuable as we chart the future course of the UWP.

Bridgette has been a valuable resource both to me and to the UWP, and she presents an opportunity to effectively deliver to the wider campus community the strengths, abilities, and expertise that reside in our program. Her pedagogical knowledge and approaches to the substantial challenges we face could position us to voice and achieve the goals that we are only beginning to articulate.

I am excited by the promising possibility of her contributions as a colleague. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any further questions concerning this matter.