Rate My Professor Mary Courtis

Courtis has led innovative pedagogical initiatives to foster cultural awareness and equity at PCC, including 'speed culturing' exercises in ATH 103 where students discuss values, marriage, kinship, and economic practices across cultures, as well as assignments requiring students to violate U.S. cultural norms and reflect on social sanctions. She incorporates community-based learning through events like the PCC Winter Pow Wow, Sami storytelling performances, and international student dialogues. Courtis planned and led a faculty-led Education Abroad program to Ireland for ATH 103, emphasizing anthropological fieldwork methods such as life histories, interviews, surveys, and participant-observation. Her research involves multiple trips to Europe to study Celtic and Norse culture and cosmology. Additionally, she served on Districtwide SAC committees designing PCC's cultural literacy and social science/critical thinking rubrics, and presented new anthropology courses as part of internationalization efforts.