PROJECT DIRECTOR
TOBY EMERT, MFA, PhD, is the Annie Louise Harrison Waterman Professor of Theatre and co-chair of the Department of Creative Arts at Agnes Scott College, where he has worked for 20 years. A former middle and high school English and drama teacher, he now teaches courses related to arts-based pedagogy, theatre, and digital storytelling. He has directed federal grant-funded projects sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Department of Education. The first Shakespeare play he read was Romeo and Juliet in ninth-grade English class.
FACULTY
CHARLOTTE ARTESE, PhD, is a professor of English at Agnes Scott College and serves as the Director of First-Year English. She specializes in Shakespeare, Renaissance literature, and folk narrative. She authored Shakespeare’s Folktale Sources and edited Shakespeare and the Folktale: An Anthology of Stories. She has published articles on Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene and Thomas More’s Utopia and teaches courses on early British and early world literature. The first Shakespeare play she read was Romeo and Juliet.
ROBIN MORRIS, PhD, is an associate professor of history at Agnes Scott College. Her research focuses on gender and political realignment in post-1945 Georgia. Some of her publications include “Organizing Breadmakers: Kathryn Dunaway and the Georgia STOP ERA Campaign” in Entering the Fray: Gender, Politics, and Culture in the New South and Goldwater Girls to Reagan Women: Gender, Georgia, and the Growth of the New Right. The first Shakespeare play she read was Romeo and Juliet.
NELL RUBY, MFA, is a professor of art at Agnes Scott College. She specializes in experimentation with materials in drawing and design to develop a disciplined practice of seeing beauty in ordinary places. She focuses on integrating manual and digital modes of expression and communication. As a mixed-media installation artist interested in exploring perception, her works juxtapose public and private space, performance and observation, fears and dreamlike experiences. The first Shakespeare play she read was Othello.
K-12 PROFESSIONALS
SHELBY COFFIN, MAT, has worked in education for over 15 years. She teaches English at Decatur High School in Decatur, Georgia, where she is Department Chair and also coaches the school Literary Team. She co-presented at the National Council of Teachers of English on “The Laramie Project: Encouraging Reading, Teaching, and Acting for Social Justice Through the History of Matthew Shepard.” She has also presented at several GCTE conferences. The first Shakespeare play she read was Romeo and Juliet.
ASHLEY DEGRACIA, EdS, teaches at Paideia School in Atlanta, Georgia. She has taught sixth grade through college-level students, but her passion lies with high school juniors and seniors. She has worked in both the public and private school sectors. Her focus has always been on knowing her students well and building a positive rapport with her school community. The first Shakespeare play she read was Romeo and Juliet.
RACHEL DARR, EdS, is assistant principal at Pinckneyville Middle School in Peachtree Corners, Georgia, where she supports the Language Arts and Special Education Department. She began her career teaching English in Rockdale County in 2007. She went on to teach at Central Gwinnett High School. Since then she has served as department chair and member of the Gwinnett County Public Schools assessment leadership team. The first Shakespeare play she read was Romeo and Juliet in 9th grade English.
LENA HAMILTON, EdD, teaches English at Decatur High School in Decatur, Georgia, and she attended the Shakespeare and Digital Storytelling Institute in the summer of 2024. She is a Black Teacher Project fellow and Advisory Board member; a Rhode Island Writers Colony fellow; a Roots Wounds Words fellow; a recipient of the Tufts University Department of English Prize; and Teacher of the Year (2009 and 2023). She is an educator, poet, and community organizer. The first Shakespeare play she read was Twelfth Night in ninth grade.
JERRY RIGDON, MAT, teaches dual-credit college English for Rockdale County Public Schools in Conyers, Georgia. He presented “Using Oral History in the Classroom” and co-presented “Digital Storytelling in the Classroom” at the 2013 and 2018 GCTE conferences respectively. He also co-presented “The Laramie Project: Encouraging Reading, Teaching, and Acting for Social Justice through the History of Matthew Shepard” at the 2013 National Council of Teachers of English convention.
NIKKI STEVERSON, EdS, has been teaching high school English for over 20 years. Along the way she has taught AP literature, a senior-level multicultural literature class, and AP research. Since 2005 she has been teaching at Duluth High School in Metro Atlanta. She has co-sponsored the National Honor Society, and each year she assists with her school’s International Night. The first Shakespeare play she read was Romeo and Juliet, and the first one she taught was Othello.
SAMANTHA SWANEY, MAT, has been teaching English literature in Conyers, Georgia (her hometown), since 2007. She is a proud undergraduate and graduate alumna of Agnes Scott College. During her years as a student and then as a facilitator in the Agnes Scott College Summer Institutes, she has found that time on campus has always left her filled with a renewed passion for the teaching profession and with countless new ideas to try out in the classroom.
GUEST INSTRUCTORS
LAURA COLE, BS, is a senior acting company member and director of education and training with the Atlanta Shakespeare Company at the Shakespeare Tavern Playhouse. She has worked as a professional thespian for 35+ years and has taught Shakespearean performance to youth and adults alike for the past 23 years.
KAYLA SHIPP, PhD, is the program manager at the Digital Humanities Lab at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. She was a digital scholarship specialist at Emory University’s Center for Digital Scholarship, where she partnered with museums, authors, and researchers to build interactive digital objects and publications. Her work has been supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry.
ADMINISTRATIVE TEAM
MIGUEL ÁNGEL COLÓN ORTIZ, BA, is a communications, efficiency, and project management professional. In addition to providing administrative and data management assistance for the summer institutes over the years, he has worked as bilingual editor on major publications for the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Among them are the ELD Standards Framework, Marco DALE, Marco ALE, and the Focus Bulletin series published by WIDA and WIDA Español. The first Shakespeare play he read was Othello.