Profile: Dr. Jessica Shumake
The fall semester of 2017 ushered in a new generation of bright eyed freshman, and among these new faces was a similarly bright eyed faculty member. She enters class in navy slacks and an accompanying blazer, offsetting the bright color of her orange quaff, and her classes often include tales of her road trip to the north and zip-lining in Kauai. This is one of Oakland’s newest faculty members, Dr. Jessica Shumake.
Shumake hails from Stafford, Virginia. The first to graduate college from her family, she possesses degrees from Newport Southeast Virginia, University of Windsor Ontario, and University of Arizona. It is here that she went on to earn her Ph.D in writing and rhetoric. Shumake continued on to teach at the University of Arizona where she helped build the curriculum for an online capstone course.
While discussing her past projects with her students, Shumake said, “As a student I supervised developed an Android app, using the programming language Java, to research whether there might be a technical solution to political apathy among youth voters in the southwest.”
Speaking of the southwest, one would usually not understand why another person would voluntarily move from the sun kissed skies of Arizona to the frozen tundra that is Michigan.
“The Writing and Rhetoric Department at OU is a nationally recognized and award winning program, so I am grateful to be here.” Shumake said.
Determined is an understatement when describing Shumake, after five years of hard work, her research has finally been accepted for publication. Within the next few months, the first generation college student will be featured in “Reflections: A Journal of Writing, Service-Learning, and Community Literacy.”
Of her contributions Shumake stated, “I’m hopeful the concrete suggestions we offer, to make service-learning partnerships make reciprocal, will have a positive impact on the field of community literacy.”
Outspoken and passionate, Shumake has entered Oakland University with fierce tenacity and an urge to help all of her students succeed.
“I’m always happy to be a sounding board for students’ drafts and ideas.” she said.“The absolute best part of my job is the opportunity to work with OU students and to support them in their studies and careers.”
Juan Gonzalez • Mar 17, 2018 at 1:00 PM
What happened at Georgia State and Arizona?
Jake • May 20, 2018 at 2:15 PM
Don’t know about Georgia, but in 2017 at the University of Arizona she went a little crazy and called the cops on one of her students because he reached out and tried to call her (even though she didn’t pick up). It seems like her mind was warped by feminism (look at her research papers) and she became very hostile over some minor disagreements. I know because I was that student, and it was ridiculous how passive aggressive she was acting with me, giving me lower grades with no explanation and refused to answer questions, up to the point where she called the cops on me because I tried contacting her outside of class (due to the fact that she wouldn’t adequately answer any of my questions, while clearly giving preferential treatment to another LGBT student with a buzzcut similar to hers. I made a big scandal within the School of Information and with the Dean, all of which were shocked to hear her behavior. Next thing we know, she’s living in Oakland and talking crap about UA politics. A very mean and petty woman, she is. lol