University of Dallas Names New Vice President for Development and University Relations
Ashton Ellis, PhD, comes to the University of Dallas after nearly 10 years in fundraising at Hillsdale College.
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Meet some of the outstanding alumni from the University of Dallas English program. Click on the name of the alumnus to read his or her full profile story.
B.A. English, 2013
Joseph Mazza graduated from UD in 2013 with a B.A. in English. After graduation, he taught at Great Hearts Academies in Arizona for three years before attending the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art for his MA in Classical Acting. During his time at LAMDA, he had the privilege to perform in the grand opening of their new Sainsbury Theatre as well as the title role in Shakespeare’s Pericles. He is incredibly thankful for the UD English Department and credits its exceptional faculty for deepening his love of Shakespeare and classical literature. He now works as an actor and fight choreographer in Atlanta, Georgia, in film, television, and voice-over.
B.A. English, 2015
Claire Ballor is a breaking news reporter for the Dallas Morning News where she’s covered everything from serial killers and missing persons to the violent ambush on Dallas police in July. She came to the University of Dallas to study English with the intention of becoming an educator, but involvement with the campus newspaper ignited within her an unshakable passion for journalism.
B.A. English, 1997
After graduating from the University of Dallas, Rudy Bush immediately began a career
in journalism as a cub reporter for the San Antonio Express-News. His stories about
topics from the annual rush for Christmas tamales to the tragic results of high-speed
police chases led to an offer to work for the Chicago Tribune.
B.A. English, 2011
John Corrales, class of 2011, is a news assistant for the Politics desk at The New York Times.
He has written breaking news stories, features, and blog posts for The Times. In January of 2016, he was sent to Des Moines, Iowa and Manchester, N.H. to help cover the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. In the fall of 2015, he helped write a story about Donald J. Trump that was printed on the front page.
"As a UD English major, I learned to interpret literature sincerely. Becoming a confident
reader who could prise meaning from texts accurately and quickly has directly influenced
my work in journalism. Reporters read life, so to speak. They interpret and write
about events, actions, and issues that haven't yet been recorded. Reporting, like
studying literature, requires analyzing events responsibly and contextualizing them
prudently."
B.A. English, 2002 - Concentration in Studio Art
His UD education gave him a grounding in literature, culture, and the study of beautiful
particulars. Additionally, it afforded him the remarkable experience of traveling
and studying abroad, inspiring in him a passion for fine food and wine, and his subsequent
dedication to enology and gastronomy.
B.A. English, 2011
RoseMary Johnson went to work right after graduating in May 2011 for Catholic Heritage
Curricula, a publisher of educational texts for Catholic homeschooling families. Her
first book, an eighth-grade literature course called The Secret Code of Poetry, was published in August, 2011.
B.A. English, 2008
Michael Murphy, UD 2008, works in St. Paul, MN as an attorney and mediator at The
Jacobson Law Group, a firm that advocates on behalf of Indian tribes and their business
and government partners.
B.A. English, 2011
Paul Spring graduated with a BA in English from the University of Dallas in 2011.
Immediately after, he moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, to pursue a career in music.
For his first two years he worked as a tutor and high school English teacher while
playing gigs at nights and on weekend.
B.A. English, 2004
Michael Traylor, UD 2004, is a Certified Professional Landman working in the oil and
gas industry. While English majors may not be normally associated with oil and gas,
Michael believes that his literature background has been a benefit to his career.
B.A. English, 2007
"It turns out all that stuff about the virtues of a liberal education are pretty true: once you get past the initial hump of learning a new field’s vocabulary, the rest is well-traveled terrain—close reading, asking good questions, writing concisely. After finishing up my masters, I was sure that this psychology thing was it, so I applied to PhD programs and was accepted at UT Southwestern.”
B.A. English, 2011
Amanda graduated from the University of Dallas in 2011 with a bachelor of arts degree
in English and a concentration in Political Philosophy. She currently lives and works
as a teacher of English as a second language (ESL) on Jeju Island in South Korea.
B.A. English and Classics, 2000; PhD, 2007
Shannon (S.K.) Valenzuela graduated in 2000 with a B.A. in English and Classics. She
married Frank Valenzuela (‘00, Politics) and then went on to study medieval literature
at the University of Notre Dame. She received her PhD in 2007 and has recently returned
to UD as an Adjunct Professor of English.
B.A., 2009, M.A., 2010
As a senior at UD, Mary was torn between her passions for lyric poetry and for rhetoric
and her lifelong dream of becoming a lawyer. While the study of the art of persuasion
truly fascinated her, Mary was inescapably drawn to its practice.
B.A. English, 2008
The summer after her 2008 graduation from UD, Kate Wyman was given a 1910 Chandler
& Price platen printing press. She spent that summer refurbishing its frozen gears,
studying its history, and teaching herself how to make it print.
B.A. English, 2011
Emilie Johannes graduated from UD in 2011 with her B.A. in English and an environmental science concentration. Upon graduating, she returned to her home state of Alaska as a technical writer for an energy research organization then for an independent Federal agency that dispersed grants to fund projects in rural Alaska.
Ashton Ellis, PhD, comes to the University of Dallas after nearly 10 years in fundraising at Hillsdale College.
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