Teresa (Terrie) Baumgardner, instructor in communications, arts and sciences at Penn State Beaver, will retire from the University on June 30 after 26 years of service.
Baumgardner began teaching at Beaver in 1988.
“She has done much to advance the curriculum in the communications program by offering several new courses and has supervised internships for communications majors,” said Donna J. Kuga, director of academic affairs, when she announced Baumgardner’s retirement. “In addition, she served as co-adviser of the campus newspaper, The Roar, while supporting numerous other campus initiatives through the years.”
Baumgardner has taught a variety of Penn State courses in English, composition, speech, communications, cinema, humanities and philosophy. In 2005 she was selected for a $10,000, two-month fellowship by the American Society of Newspaper Editors Institute for Journalism Excellence. The fellowship, which she spent in a newspaper residency at The Herald in Rock Hill, S.C., was designed to update her hands-on experience in journalism while she helped the newsroom understand the impact of higher education in journalism. Her professional papers have included various studies of thematic lines of faith, feminism and freedom as seen in numerous films, including "The Truman Show," "A Cry in the Dark," "Places in the Heart" and "Tender Mercies."
In addition, she has been involved in a wide range of Beaver campus activities, including development of the Diversity Film Series, chairing the Student Affairs Committee, coordinating the Martin Luther King Jr. Essay Contest, implementing Project Empower technology, serving as secretary of the Beaver campus Faculty Congress and assisting with the Beaver County Times/Penn State Beaver Spelling Championship.
Prior to 1988, Baumgardner was a lecturer and instructor in English composition at Penn State Altoona, Penn State Greater Allegheny, the University of Pittsburgh and Community College of Allegheny County. She also spent a year teaching English and speech at Concord Senior High School in Concord, N.C., and spent four years as an instructor in composition, literature and speech, and student newspaper adviser at Western Piedmont Community College in Morganton, N.C. Baumgardner holds a master’s degree in general speech and rhetoric with a minor in English from the University of North Carolina Greensboro. She earned a bachelor’s degree in English education at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. In addition, she has taken a variety of post-graduate courses in English literature in Pittsburgh and North Carolina.
Baumgardner can be contacted until the end of June at [email protected] or 724-773-3861.