FA C U LT Y S P O T L I G H T
Teaching Excellence Swigelson shares talents and passion at Priory
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here’s a saying “you may not always end up where you thought you were going, but you always end up where you are meant to be.” That can be said for the 2022 Emerson Excellence in Teaching Award winner Kayce Swigelson, who’s on her second tenure at Priory. Swigelson, a St. Louis native, attended high school at St. Joseph’s Academy and college at Truman State University. She earned a bachelor’s degree in French and minored in English and translation. During her time at Truman State, she studied abroad in Angers, France, attending L’Université Catholique de I’Ouest.
Kayce Swigelson
“Living with a family and studying in France was pattern-changing for me. Nothing is better for a language learner than to be forced into cultural and linguistic immersion,” says Swigelson. She added, “I thought I knew a lot about the French language and culture before I went, but I realized how much I didn’t know until it became experiential. Because of French, I was exposed to an entire new tranche of people, ideas, inspiration, beauty, and critical thinking skills.” Swigelson earned her master’s degree in French and Francophone Literature from the University of Notre Dame where she also taught French courses to undergraduates and translated 18th and 19th century primary documents for a book called American Jesuits and the World. Soon after Notre Dame, Swigelson taught French as a lecturer at the University of Missouri-St. Louis for a year but was looking for something more. “I was teaching a few undergrad classes as a lecturer and decided that I wanted to stay in teaching, so I was looking for more solid full-time work in March 2010,” she says. “The only job that popped up was at Priory. I had heard of Priory but didn’t know anything about it. I didn’t have the time or luxury to wonder too deeply if I’d want to teach high school or how I felt about teaching boys.”
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