Meet your Professor!

First, I go by Ken, Professor Ken, Professor Alexander, or Mr. Alexander (in order of preference.) While you'll have other professors from other colleges in the program from the San Mateo, Los Rios and Santa Rosa Community College Districts, I will represent your home campus (DVC, LMC, or CCC) and teach at minimum, three of your courses. I would like to introduce myself to you by including a personal statement as to why I wanted to be your instructor.

Quite frankly, I am much better qualified to teach abroad now than I was in 1999 and even in 2010, both semesters I taught in Florence. My professional and personal experience in the time since has allowed me to mature in all the roles I play and the Study Abroad Program provides me with the best venue to offer my present and future students the benefit of that experience.

While I am fully an American in identity, I feel “at home” in Europe in general and the U.K. in particular. I have traveled there extensively, completing over 1200 miles of hiking its National Trail network, making two circuits of the island by car and 100s of miles traveling by train to almost all its major cities, museums, castles, and cathedrals.

As an Art Historian, Humanities, and Art Studio professor, artist, and designer, the U.K. has rewarded me richly in all of these areas. I feel a particular affinity with Renaissance Humanist faith in the transformative power of education. I should like to share, and I hope inspire, that kind of feeling in my students. The courses you take from me will reflect these values.

Lastly, I simply want to see and experience London again as a long-term resident, not just as a place to "bookend" my long-distance walking trips. My learning curve will be very short. I know where to shop (and where not to!) I know the rhythms and rigors of day-to-day life in the city, where things are, how to get there, and mostly, I know how things work. I am really glad to be going back! I hope you'll join me.kalexander@losmedanos.edu.)