Dr. Erin Gilreath Carlson

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Dr. Erin Gilreath Carlson

Program Chair

Director of General Education | Lecturer of Spanish

Edens Library | 117E

803.786.3033

Biography

Erin Gilreath Carlson is an alumna of Columbia College and credits it with preparing her to be a strong educator. She taught in various high schools around South Carolina for 10 years before moving to the university level, where she has taught for another 10 years. While teaching full time, Erin earned her Masters of Education in Languages from the College of Charleston and, later, her Doctorate in Language and Literacy from the University of South Carolina. Her research interests include examining issues of identities as they intersect with literacies and cultural practices and perspectives. Erin lives in Columbia with her dreamboat husband and two beautiful, vivacious, and mischievous daughters. She enjoys traveling, lifting weights, discussing haute couture and participating in her neighborhood book club. 

Awards & Accomplishments

  • 2021 - University of South Carolina, College of Arts and Sciences Undergraduate Teaching Award for Professional Faculty
  • 2020 - South Carolina Foreign Language Teachers’ Association World Languages Teacher of the Year
  • 2019 - Level Up: Increasing the Complexity of Student Expression – Voted Top Ten of FLANC (out of 125 sessions), Foreign Language Association of North Carolina Fall Conference
  • 2019 - University of South Carolina, College of Arts and Sciences Incubator for Teaching Innovation INCUBATE Innovative Teacher, Fall Semester
  • 2019 - University of South Carolina, College of Arts and Sciences Incubator for Teaching Innovation INCUBATE Innovative Teacher, Spring Semester
  • 2019 - Post a Professor’s Secret – Voted University of South Carolina, College of Arts and Sciences Incubator for Teaching Innovation INCUBATE Design Challenge Winner
  • 2017 - The Big Three: Three activities to get your students reading, speaking & writing in the target language every day – Voted Top Ten of FLANC (out of 118 sessions), Foreign Language Association of North Carolina Fall Conference
  • 2017 - Academia LatinoAmerica Scholarship, awarded by Southern Conference On Language Teaching

Publications

  • Madison, S. M., & Carlson, E. G. (In press). Intentional focus on social justice through incremental changes to classroom instruction. In L. J. Randolph, S. M. Johnson, & K. Davidson (Eds.), How we take action: Social justice in K-16 language classrooms.
  • Carlson, E. G. (January, 2017) What Should You Know for FeriaSCSC? La Vela: the Newsletter of AATSPSC.
  • Carlson, E. G. (2016). A Framework for Advancing Proficiency in Language Learner Output. The Language Educator, 11(2), 46-49.
  • Carlson, E.G. (September, 2016) My Three Go-tos. La Vela: the Newsletter of AATSPSC.

What’s your favorite thing about the Columbia College campus?

I have always loved the vintage mailboxes still in use today! Those mailboxes connect students across generations of alumnae (and now alumni!). I love to imagine the decades of students using the same lettered dials, opening the same small doors, and receiving the same kinds of news: winning awards, letters filled with heartbreak, plans for future trips, updates about friends and family members... So much about our campus--and college life in general--has changed so much, but those adorable mailboxes are practically time machines!