USCGA Associate English Professor Karen Wink has been an educator in secondary, college, and corporate settings for more than 20 years. Ms. Wink began her career in 1985 as an English and speech teacher at Crestwood High School in Mantua, Ohio. In 1986, she left public school teaching temporarily to become the Director of the Sylvan Learning Center in Middleburg Heights, Ohio, and concurrently pursued a Masters degree in Reading Education at Baldwin Wallace College. In 199O, with a new degree in hand, Ms. Wink was promoted to Corporate Educational Trainer and Program Manager at Sylvan Learning Systems, first in Montgomery, Alabama, then in Baltimore, Maryland, where she worked until 1993. At this time, she enrolled in the University of Maryland full-time to pursue her Ph.D. During her graduate studies, Ms. Wink, at different times, assumed a graduate assistantship in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, returned to secondary teaching English (9-11th grades) in the Howard County school system in Columbia, Maryland, and served as an adjunct Freshmen English instructor at the University of Maryland. In 1999, she earned her Ph.D. in English Education with an emphasis on rhetoric and composition. Following, she has assumed the roles of the Director of the Reading Program for three years and an English professor for nine years at the Academy. Her central duties have been teaching, advising, tutoring, and serving on committees as well as speaking at conferences, professional writing, and reviewing journal manuscripts.  

• Ph.D., English Education, magna cum laude, University of Maryland, 1999
• MaEd., Reading Education, summa cum laude, Baldwin Wallace College, 1989
• B.S., English Education, cum laude, Kent State University, 1985

• Introduction to Literature
• Introduction to College Communications
• English Composition and Speech
• Art of Effective Writing
• Writing About Literature
• Humanities and World Literature: Greek, Roman and Other Myths
• Special Topics: Romanticism

• "A Lesson from the Holocaust: From Bystander to Advocate in the Classroom"/English Journal and Voice on America segment; The McGraw-Hill Exercise Book to accompany A Writer's Resource, Editorial Consultant
• "An Afghani Girl on the Other Side of the Sky: A Reader's Guide"/SimonSaysTeach.com
• "Poet Laureate Inspires Aspiring Poets"/Connecticut English Journal
• "Rhetorical Pedagogy for Active and Passive Voice"/WritingInstructor.com
• Presented many workshops and served on many panels at NCTE, NEATE, CRLA and CCCC conferences, 1995-present.

• Tenure and Promotion, U.S. Coast Guard Academy, 2005
• Outstanding Teacher Fellowship Grant, The Cambridge England Teacher Seminar, 1997
• Outstanding Contributions and Dedication, Sylvan Learning Systems, 1993

• National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE)
• New England Association for Teachers of English (NEATE)
• College Composition and Communication (CCC)