Faculty

Heather Hirschi, Assistant Professor/Lecturer, University Writing Program, University of Utah

Heather Hirschi, MFAGlendale Dreamkeepers Project Director Heather Hirschi is an Assistant Professor/Lecturer in the University of Utah Writing Program and the Director of the Glendale Dreamkeepers Project. Heather holds a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing with an emphasis on Fiction and two Bachelors degrees in English and Gender Studies. She has taught in various capacities for the University of Utah since 1994. Heather received the UWP’s Excellence in Writing Award for Teaching in 2009-2010 and 2011-2012.

Heather’s undergraduate research included extensive exploration of Chican@ literature and the efficacy of bilingual education. As a graduate student, she initiatedthe Crossroads Anthology Project that resulted in the 1996 publication: What There Is: The Crossroads Anthology, co-edited by Ariana-Sophia Kartsonis and Brenda Miller. The anthology, which Heather designed, included writers and artists such as Terry Tempest Williams and Stephen Trimble and benefitted Crossroads Urban Center, a poverty relief organization.

Heather’s writing has been published in various literary and popular journals, including Painted Bride Quarterly, Black Warrior Review, Utah Business Magazine andthe West View, a Salt Lake City West Side publication. Her textbook, Creative Writing: The Easy Way, was published by Barron’s in 2004.

In 2008 and 2009, Heather spearheaded a writing project as part of an innovative Study Abroad in the Czech Republic called Project “New Eyes” (PNE). The program, a collaboration with Dr. Steven Sternfeld of the University of Utah Linguistics Department, was premised on the idea that service-based cultural immersion allowsstudents a deeper understanding of the host community while they make tangible contributions to that community.

Heather has a long history of community activism. From 2000 to 2009, she worked to establish and fund the Utah chapter of Jobs with Justice, an economic and social justice coalition of faith-based, student and labor organizations. From 2001 to 2010,Heather lived in the Glendale community, Wasatch Commons, a consensus-based organization committed to sustainable living practices and community enrichment. There she also was involved in the Glendale community council and other Glendale organizations. As a member of the Glendale community and UWP faculty, Heather initiated the Dreamkeepers project with Glendale Middle School Vice-Principal Jennifer Mayer-Glenn and UWP Director Maureen Mathison. She is committed to understanding and implementing best practices for ensuring that underrepresented students from Glendale thrive through high school and into college

Steven Sternfeld, Associate Professor, Linguistics & Adjunct Associate Professor, Languages and Literature, University of Utah