Stokes Schwartz

My work in the college classroom spans almost 30 years and includes collaboration with students at three Big 10 universities,  two four-year liberal arts institutions, and two community colleges across the Upper Midwest of the United States.  At MSU, I coach students through various face-to-face, hybrid, and asynchronous online courses offered through the Center for Integrative Studies in the Arts and Humanities.  My current course portfolio includes courses on topics as diverse as Contemporary Horror Cinema, Global Cinema, Feminist Cinema, Social Problem Dramas, Scandinavian Crime Fiction, and Nordic Women Authors among others.

My passion is the use of digital technologies to engage, enable, and empower students in their exploration of Humanities topics and cultivation of 21st century skills like critical thinking, team-building, problem-solving, and conflict resolution.  On that note, I am a former Walter and Pauline Adams Academy for Instructional Excellence and Innovation fellow (2016-2017), a participant in the Lilly Teaching Fellows Program (2023-2024), and been recognized for my contribution to teaching with the #Iteachmsu Educator Award (2024) as well as the Award for Service to Integrative Studies in the Arts and Humanities (April 2022).

A former Fulbright Scholar at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway during 1999-2000, my education includes degrees in Scandinavian Studies and Scandinavian Literature from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with Ph.D. coursework in Norwegian Literature, completed at the University of Minnesota where I also taught the Norwegian language to undergraduates.  I love language learning and have reading knowledge of Danish, Swedish, and Old Norse with varying levels of experience in German, Dutch, Spanish, and French.  Hindi, Mandarin, or Italian would be fun to tackle next.