Associate Professor
鈥淚 am an army brat. I actually spent most of my childhood living in Western Europe,鈥� Professor Ferguson says. Between the ages of three and 13, she lived in West Germany and the Netherlands. 鈥淚 was living outside the United States but reading news about it. We would get the Armed Forces鈥� newspaper, the Stars and Stripes, and my dad and I would argue over the kitchen table about the Iran Contra Affair, and whether Reagan was a good president or not. That was really fun.鈥�
Ferguson attributes her interest in politics to her early education. She grew up around people with many different nationalities and learned to speak French in her time abroad. 鈥淚t encouraged me to think about how societies could run completely differently than ours does in the US, and it gave me exposure to a lot of different ways of viewing the world and history.鈥�
It wasn鈥檛 until her father left the military that she moved to Colorado with her family. 鈥淚 hated it,鈥� she says. 鈥淲e moved to a suburban neighborhood where you had to be able to drive to get anywhere. When we lived in Holland, we lived in a small town and I could get on my bike as a kid and if my parents needed something for dinner, they could send one of us out. We didn鈥檛 need a driver's license or car.鈥�
The professor鈥檚 two older sisters eventually wen
t to CU, but not wanting to follow them, Ferguson pursued Bryn Mawr for her undergraduate. She later went to graduate school at Harvard. After working at the University of Washington, Professor Ferguson received an offer to come to 麻豆影院. A year after Ferguson started, her sister became a professor in Mechanical Engineering at CU. Their other sister works as a software developer and program manager at Google, so her whole family settled back in Colorado.
鈥淲e were all here in the 80s, we all moved away, and now we鈥檙e all back. I would not have predicted that this is how my life would be at this point.鈥� 15 years later, Ferguson is still at the 麻豆影院, inspiring her students to engage in greater conversations.
鈥淗ow do you start to see yourself as a political agent?鈥� The ultimate question Professor Michaele Ferguson asks her students. 鈥淚 want students to be prepared for a life of engaged citizenship.鈥� Ferguson creates opportunities for her students to hold civil debates, organize political action, and learn how to apply timeless ideologies to relevant issues today.
Students in Ferguson鈥檚 Sex, Power, and Politics class design and implement their own political activism projects. She keeps her students鈥� visuals as examples for future classes she鈥檒l teach. Her show-and-tells include a #MeToo project students created: 鈥淭hey had a couple of cardboard boxes that they painted white and then wrote the hashtag MeToo on it. They had people in the UMC come and write their stories or just write MeToo on it if they weren鈥檛 comfortable sharing their experiences,鈥� Ferguson says, as she points to the different stories people shared on the poster. 鈥淭his is a very powerful way to raise people鈥檚 awareness of how pervasive sexual harassment and sexual assault are. But where does this take us beyond that?鈥�
鈥淚 want [students] to learn that they as ordinary citizens can actually start to create change through things they can do here on campus.鈥�
Professor Ferguson also teaches PSCI 2004 in political theory, but she adds a twist to it. She covers traditional ideologies including the big five: liberalism, conservatism, fascism, socialism, and anarchism. After spring break, however, Ferguson introduces听feminism, white nationalism, anitfascism,听Black Lives Matter and radical black thought into her course. 鈥淚 can鈥檛 just teach the traditional ideologies, as if there aren鈥檛 other ideas popping up in our political world. I have to teach what is happening right now, too, to prepare my students to understand the world we live in.鈥�
With passion and thoughtfulness, Professor Ferguson makes a difference in her students鈥� lives in her engaging and dynamic courses. Her outlook on teaching prepares students for more than just their careers; she is committed to creating spaces where students can think critically and apply their knowledge to political action.
鈥淧olitics means you have a vision of what the world should look like and you take a stand on something you want to change. If someone criticizes you, it doesn鈥檛 mean you have to be dug in about it, you just have to dig deeper.鈥�
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