Ginny Ramirez-DelToro, Ph.D.

Academic Dean for Student Athletes, Student Athlete Academic Support Oversight Committee. Chair, Bascom Headen Palmer Literary Prize Committee.

 

Ph.D., Language, Literacy, and Culture, University of Pittsburgh

I was born in Puerto Rico and was almost five years old when I moved with my parents and two older brothers to North Carolina. The experience of starting kindergarten in an entirely different place and having to learn English at the same time shaped me as a learner, a future teacher, and more broadly, as a person.

In 2001, I graduated from Duke with a BA in psychology. I continued my education at UNC Wilmington, earning my K-6 teaching license. I taught second grade for several years and then went back to school to earn a Master's degree in K-12 Reading, which I did at Winthrop University. During my time at Winthrop, I was a graduate assistant in the Dean's Office of the College of Education, and served as a guest lecturer in a professor's class, guiding college students to reflect on the role of language in our everyday lives.

From there I went on to earn my Ph.D. in Language, Literacy, and Culture from the University of Pittsburgh. While at Pittsburgh, I taught education courses as a TA and supervised teaching interns. In 2018, I served as a mentor in the Duke Athletics Academic Department, and from 2019 to 2022 was the Men’s Basketball Academic Coordinator.

In the Fall of 2021, I also began to teach with the FOCUS program in the American Experiences Cluster, for which I developed an Education course called Culture, Language, and Purposeful Discomfort in American Classrooms.