Katherine Baker

Education & Licensure

• Bachelor of Arts, Saint Joseph’s University
• Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, Concentration in Fiction Writing: Awarded Thesis with Distinction, Rosemont College

Biography

“You can make anything by writing.”  ― C.S. Lewis 

Katherine (Katie) Baker, MFA, is an Associate Professor of Writing and Director of the First Year Connections Seminar Program at Rosemont College. She has been a full-time faculty member since 2014. She serves as the Discipline Coordinator for English, Writing, and Theater and has been in this role since 2014. She also has worked on several faculty committees, including the Rank Tenure and Compensation Committee and Faculty Council. She is the faculty coordinator for the Minor in Creative Writing Program and coordinates the accelerated Writing Studies program for the School of Graduate and Professional Studies. 

Katie’s teaching philosophy reflects her belief in collaborative learning. She is an advocate and believer in student-centered teaching that promotes learning by both students and teachers, encouraging students to speak in conversation in all types of courses. She believes that it is equally important for students to be both good readers and good writers, and strives to help students recognize the necessity for using these skills for future endeavors, no matter what the career field. 

Katie’s research interests and teaching fall into several areas, especially studying and teaching social justice issues through the perspectives of literature. Many of her classes focus on the significance of women writers writing for justice around the 19th and 20th centuries in American writing, the power of place in writing, and several other areas of American literature.  

She also takes great interest in looking at issues faced by first-year writers in college, as well as an invested interest in professional writing, preparing others to feel confident about their endeavors in and outside the classroom. At the core, she is a creative writer and thoroughly enjoys writing and discussing creative works with her students and directing Rosemont’s minor in Creative Writing. 

Katie was awarded an NEH Summer Institute Fellowship in June 2022 on, “Transcendentalism and Social Reform: Activism and Community Engagement in the Age of Thoreau.” She was also awarded the Distinguished Teaching Award for Full-Time Undergraduate Faculty at Rosemont College in 2018. She has been a recipient of numerous Teagle grants as well as the CIC (Council of Independent Colleges) Consortium for Online Humanities Instruction II grant from 2016 to 2018. She has been an invited speaker at many colleges and universities on a variety of topics related to academic, creative, and professional writing.

She is an avid writer, reader, and runner, though not all at the same time. 

Undergraduate Courses

• FYCS 0100: First Year Connections Seminar

Writing Courses:

• WRTG 110/ WRTG 110 Honors
• WRTG 0170/ WRTG 0170 Honors
• WRTG 0205 – Introduction to Creative Writing
• WRTG 0210 – Creative Writing: Nonfiction
• WRTG 0215 – Creative Writing, Short Fiction
• WRTG 0220 – Creative Writing, Poetry
• WRTG 0245 – Empowered Through Prose: Social Justice and Creative Writing
• WRTG 0240 – Business Writing
• WRTG, 0250 – The Power of the Pen, Writing About Place, The City of Philadelphia

English Courses:

•  ENG 0201- Studies in Fiction
• ENG 0221 – The Development of the American Novel
• ENG 0222 – Major American Writers to 1890
• ENG 0223 – Major American Writers, 1890 to 1940
• ENG 0237 – Literary Pioneers of New England: A Study of American Women Writers Now and Then*
• ENG 0270 – Social Justice in Modern and Contemporary Literature In Social Justice and Contemporary Literature
• ENG 0395 – Modern American Literature
• ENG 0425 – The Beat Generation: Memory, Madness, and Desire
• ENG 0490 – Senior English Seminar
• ENG 0209/ HIS 0209 – Digital Humanities

Graduate Course

• LIT 7042 – Rhetoric and Composition

Awards

• Healy Award, Institute for Ethical Leadership and Social Responsibility, 2019-2020 Institute Fellow & 2017-2018 Institute Fellow
• Distinguished Teaching Award for Full-Time Undergraduate Faculty, 2018
• Outstanding Achievement at the Graduate Level, Spring 2011 Awarded Thesis with Distinction, Spring 2011
• SEPCHE Teagle Foundation Award Strengthening Multi-Disciplinary Approaches to Business Education, 2017-2019

Grants

• Professional Development Grant: Rosemont College (2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021) Wiki Scholar, 2019 Completion of Training with the National Archives Museum and Wiki Education
• Recipient of CIC (Council of Independent Colleges) Consortium for Online Humanities Instruction II Grant, 2016 to 2018
• Recipient of Young Faculty Grant, Connelly Foundation, 2016/ 2017
• Distinguished Visitor Grant- Connelly Foundation, 2015/2016
• NEH Summer Institute Fellowship Recipient, “Transcendentalism and Social Reform: Activism and Community Engagement in the Age of Thoreau”, July 2022

Boards & Memberships

• Modern Language Association, Member
• Northeast Modern Language Association, Member
• Association of Writers and Writer’s Programs, Member
• Philadelphia Writing Program Administrators, Member
• Coalition of Community Writing, Member