International Student Services

Kelly Whitcomb is an educator with particular interests in languages and cultures. Earning a bachelor’s degree in English from Millersville University with a concentration in linguistics and a minor in education, Kelly taught ESL in Poland for four years where she traveled around central Europe, learned Polish and served as a leader on English language camps for high school, college and adult students of English. After returning to the U.S., she pursued graduate work in religious studies with a particular interest in the languages and cultures of the Hebrew  Bible (Jewish Tanak, Christian Old Testament) and the ways in which cultural perspectives and experiences influence our understandings of religious texts and our practices.  She earned her Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University, completing a certificate from the university’s Center for Teaching by designing a project focused on higher education language learning. She has also taught at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, where she developed a pedagogy centered on multi-vocal classrooms and social justice concerns in education and religion. She has a deep commitment to creating learning environments that promote understanding, both of ourselves and of others, with cultural diversity at the heart of any learning community.