Comm Professor says Goodbye to Longwood

By Brooke Brennan

Rotunda ReporterAfter spending a total of 13 years involved with Longwood, four as a student and nine teaching, Tammy Gingras Moore has decided to leave LU after the spring 2010 semester. Tammy's husband, vice president of a tobacco processing plant, has had his job relocated to Lancaster, PA, where he and his family will be transferring. Gingras Moore acknowledges the move will be great for her family, but leaving LU is sure to be difficult.

Gingras Moore arrived at LU in 1992, where she pursued biology for her major and achieved a speech minor. Tammy admits that people are often taken aback by this realization after considering her current occupation as a professor in the communications department. Back then, what we would now call Communication Studies, was known as speech and theater. Both of which are where she spent a great deal of her time, first as a student obtaining her minor and then as a teacher.

Gingras Moore graduated in 1996 with more than just a diploma. While in college, she dedicated most of her time outside of the classroom to organizations affiliated with the university. She said she fell in love with Longwood because of the immense opportunity it offered for people to get involved. "I was in the Biology Honors Club, a dedicated member of the forensics team, an Ambassador, and a part of Alpha Phi Omega."

Due to her dedication and willingness to participate in the activities listed above, Gingras Moore would literally have to cut out of one meeting and run across campus to the next. Fortunately for her, studying came easily to her and therefore made her busy schedule possible.

Being a member of the forensics club and qualifying for the speech and debate tournament every year were Gingras Moore's biggest achievements while attending LU. As a part of the club, she and other members would focus on competitive speaking, performing and writing speeches, interpretation events, and impromptu - her favorite of the bunch.

Upon graduating in 1996, Gingras Moore left the university and spent a year coaching the speech and debate team and obtaining her masters at Bloomsburg University (BU). One year later, Gingras Moore was offered to substitute for a public speaking class at Longwood during a nine week period. To teach at a college level, Gingras Moore said, one must have a master's degree and 18 credential hours in that field, which is what she had - thanks to her speech minor - and therefore was able to teach the public speaking class.

Gingras Moore uncharacteristically skipped her last night of graduate school at BU and headed to Farmville to teach a public speaking class; four years later, she was still here. Gingras Moore was and still is considered adjunct, or part time, and has gone from teaching one class a semester to three. When she began teaching in 1997, she was also working on her second master's degree in environmental studies, which she did not end up completing and no longer exists at this university. While teaching public speaking and in graduate school here at LU, she was also coaching the forensics team.

Since being here, Gingras Moore has taught a variety of classes in different departments: speech and theater, a Business Communications course in the College of Business and Economics, Biology 101, and Communication Studies. Tammy also taught a freshman seminar class throughout her years.

In 2001, after the passing of her mother, Gingras Moore drifted to Charlottesville, VA, to be closer to her family. During her second lapse of time away from LU lasting three years, she could be found in the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia (UVA), teaching economic education.

"I liked UVA, but it wasn't Longwood," says Tammy.

In 2004, Dr. Bill Stuart, then-chair of the Longwood Communication Studies department, called Gingras Moore and asked her to teach a couple of classes that needed to be covered. Shr has been teaching at Longwood ever since, except during 2007 when she was taking care of her newborn child, Riley. In addition to teaching at Longwood, Gingras Moore has been an instructor for an online public speaking course for Germanna Community College.

Junior and Communication Studies major Jessica Snyder has had Gingras Moore as a teacher for both public speaking and now interpersonal communication. From a student perspective, Snyder spoke highly of the methods that Gingras Moore uses to conduct her classes by engaging the students in interactive games.

Snyder said Gingras Moore is a "very encouraging teacher. She helped me realize that I wanted to be a communications major and she really cares about her students."

Gingras Moore said her favorite classes to teach would be a tie between public speaking and interpersonal communication, but that the communication classes in general have really won her heart over. Both of these classes are not a matter of comprehension but instead are skill involved and allow her to observe each student improve. Within teaching the classes, she loves to watch students grow as they learn from her, each other, and themselves.

She said, "I go from watching students in tears the day of their first speech to the end of the semester where they are doing it [speaking publicly] like it's nothing. That's why I love it."

The most important thing that Gingras Moore has learned at Longwood is who she is as a person. She had no idea who she was when she got here at the age of 18 and never in a million years thought that she would end up teaching. Her plans to become a biologist were infinitely forgotten when she accepted her nine week teaching assignment at LU.

She said, "I didn't know I wanted to teach until I walked into that first class. I remember walking out of the room thinking, 'That was fun, I can do this!'"