This fall semester, Robert Mundy joined the Pace community as a full-time English professor.

Mundy’s passion for teaching stems from his love of art. He felt that the best way to further his artistic pursuits was to explore the medium of writing with other people, namely his students.

“I always felt that I wasn’t getting nurtured in terms of writing, being an artist, or even just exploring the arts as a student,” Mundy said. “[T]here were all these different conversations that could be had, and that really got me thinking about writing, talking, and working with students. So, I [thought that teaching] was really the direction–to create these communities of writers.”

Mundy currently teaches English 120 and English 201.

Before coming to Pace, Mundy was a professor at St. John’s University and SUNY Old Westbury, and served as Assistant Director of the writing center at SUNY Old Westbury.

There, he taught classes like basic global literature, American literature, Shakespeare, and a course about road novels from around the world.

Mundy identifies his style of teaching as student-centered; he does not like to spend much of the class lecturing. He hopes that his courses will forge relationships between members of his class, and that they will learn as they go through the writing process together.

He also wants to bring out the best of the students’ preexisting writing abilities.

“I want students to be able to articulate their writing process–to take something that is very natural, and sometimes becomes kind of convoluted, and be able to articulate what they do and why they do it well,” Mundy said. “I think we are all natural in terms of our writing; we need to just start thinking about what we do that’s effective, and play on strengths.”

Outside of the classroom, Mundy’s hobbies include painting and playing with his Jack Russell Chihuahua.

He is also currently working on some personal writing projects on composition.

“I write about composition, and a lot of it presently focuses on the construction of writing through a class gender perspective,” Mundy said. “I’m interested in working class identities, specifically working class male identities in writing classrooms.”

Mundy chose to work at Pace because he is very familiar with the New York area, having been born in Manhattan and lived in both Long Island and White Plains.

He feels that this familiarity will help him to serve the Pace community.

“Pace is interesting; it is very similar to Saint John’s where I went to graduate school, so I’m familiar with the area,” he said. “[Teaching here is] about me fitting in with the population as much as the population fitting into my classroom. I think I’ll translate well.”