Professor Emerita, School of Education
Amy E. Ryken taught graduate courses in the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) program and undergraduate education courses from 2001-2023. She was honored to serve as Dean of the School of Education from 2017-2023.
Amy was awarded the Thomas A. Davis Teaching Award in 2004 and the President’s Excellence in Teaching Award in 2007. She received the Graduates of Color Faculty Involvement Award in 2013 and the Keep Living the Dream Award in 2014. In 2023 the Faculty Senate awarded her the Walter Lowrie Sustained Service Award in honor of her sustained contributions to the University.
In teaching, advising, research, and service Amy was deeply interested in the life long journey of becoming the teacher each of us hopes to be, in engaging teaching and learning as intellectual and humanizing acts, and in confronting biases and inequities in the personal and institutional relations of our daily lives. Amy studied teacher learning, how to create equitable classroom spaces, and partnerships that foster connections between schools and community resources.
The School of Education at the University of Puget Sound is a strong and active learning community. What attracted Amy to the School of Education is the commitment to reflective teaching practices, collaboration, and engaging the dilemmas of the profession. Amy felt very fortunate to engage daily with students and colleagues who posed challenging questions and were willing to make themselves vulnerable by making their teaching practices public for critique and analysis. Amy loved working with a cohort of students over a year and contributing to and witnessing their growth as professionals. Amy found it very rewarding to learn and grow as an educator in collaborative dialogue with other educators.
Throughout Amy’s time at Puget Sound she actively pursued culturally responsive practice and contributed collaboratively to the ongoing work of equity. Amy was significantly involved with equity initiatives such as serving as chair of the Committee on Diversity and co-leading the initiative to add the Knowledge, Identity, and Power (KNOW) graduation requirement; serving on the Diversity Advisory Council, co-founding the Transgender Advocacy and Inclusion Committee; supporting the work of the Race and Pedagogy Institute; serving on the Gender and Queer Studies Advisory Board; and co-leading curriculum collaborations between African American Studies, the Race & Pedagogy Institute and the School of Education.
For a list of the courses Amy taught, see courses taught. For more information about Amy’s research and professional engagement, see her curriculum vitae and publications.