Staff
Lott Hill
Director
Lott Hill has been teaching in the Fiction Writing Department at Columbia College since 1997. He has also developed and instructed service-learning classes for the Senior Seminar and the Cultural Studies Program’s Art and Community Development, as well as New Millennium Studies: The First Year Seminar. Before working with the CTE, Lott represented the Fiction Writing Department in the creation and development of the Urban Missions project with the Office of Community Arts Partnerships (now the Center for Community Arts Partnership), and served for two years as OCAP’s College/Community Liaison. He has also been Lead Artist of the City of Chicago’s Gallery 37 Summer Creative Writing program, and coordinated youth-based community outreach projects for the Fiction Writing Department.
Lott originally relocated to Chicago to study Creative Writing at Columbia because he was impressed and inspired by the faculty he found here, as well as the innovative approaches to teaching that engaged students in active learning. After receiving his MFA from Columbia, he directed the Writer’s Voice program at the Duncan YMCA/Chernin Center for the Arts and conducted extensive research on the practice and impact of various approaches to academic civic engagement such as community-based learning, service-learning, and other forms of experiential learning. Since then, Lott has led many civic engagement initiatives on campus including Critical Encounters.
Lott’s fiction, poetry, and nonfiction have appeared in multiple issues of Hair Trigger, Columbia Poetry Review, Fish Stories, B-City, The Spoon River Poetry Review, Metropolitan Universities, Demo, Adbusters, and the Association for Higher Education’s Peer Review.
Soo La Kim
Director
Soo La Kim came to the Center for Teaching Excellence as Associate Director in 2007. She began her career as an educator at the University of California, Irvine, where she taught courses in expository writing, English literature, and Humanities, and where she received her Ph.D. in English in 2000. Before coming to Columbia, Soo La was Assistant Director for Faculty and Tutor Development in the Princeton Writing Program, where she also taught an interdisciplinary writing seminar called "The Social Life of Things." During her time at Princeton, she served as Faculty Mentor to new instructors and as Undergraduate Faculty Advisor for one of the residential colleges.
Soo La has presented at national conferences on both writing and literature topics, most recently at the 2007 Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) Convention in New Orleans. She has contributed to the Harvard Study of Undergraduate Writing, a four-year longitudinal study of student writing development, and a Study of First-Year Writing at Princeton, part of a multi-faceted program self-assessment. At Columbia, Soo La has been actively developing and facilitating new faculty development programs, including the CV workshop and a four-part Teaching Portfolio workshop series for part-time faculty. She also teaches in New Millennium Studies: The First-Year Seminar.
Although her creative endeavors have been sporadic, Soo La has enjoyed taking classes in photography and yoga. And in 2004, she and a group of friends founded Printculture: a daily blogzine on culture, politics, and academic life, which has a small but dedicated readership.
Megan Stielstra
Assistant Director
Megan Stielstra received her MFA from Columbia College in 2001 and currently teaches in the Fiction Writing Department. She is also a Lecturer at the University of Chicago, a Teaching Artist with the Goodman Theatre, and Director of Story Development for 2nd Story, Chicago’s urban storytelling series held in wine bars.
Megan has performed for The Chicago Poetry Center, The Chicago Cultural Center, The Goodman Theatre, The Neo-Futurarium, Storyweek Festival of Writers, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Strawdog Theatre, The Dollar Store, Opium's Literary Death Match, WBEZ’s Writer’s Block Party and 2nd Story; her writing has appeared in Other Voices, Fresh Yarn, Pindeldyboz, Swink, Perigee, Venus, The 2nd Hand, inthefray and Punk Planet; and has been featured by Theatre Seven of Chicago and Bohemian Archeology in NYC.
Megan has discussed storytelling for Associated Writing Programs, The National Association of Writing in Education in London, The Center for Art in Public Life in San Francisco, the Illinois Association of Teachers of English, CCC's Creative Nonfiction Week, and the Pilcrow Literary Festival, as well as serving as a storytelling judge for the Third Coast International Audio Festival.
Maggie RitterProgram Manager
Maggie Ritter graduated from Loyola University Chicago with a degree in English and minors in Sociology and Photography. Not only does Maggie serve as the logistical ninja behind many of the CTE's inner-workings (as in: you will not see her, but you will know she was there!), but also she is pursuing a Second Bachelor of Arts degree in American Sign Language-English Interpretation here at Columbia. Please contact her if you would like more information about -- or would like to reserve a space in -- any of the CTE's programs!
