Hello. My name is Joe Miglio. I have been in the field of professional development and adult education since 1976. For the past ten years I have been employed at Cambridge College; an institution committed to providing educational access to under represented, disenfranchised adults. I currently serve as Director of the Springfield, Massachusetts campus providing academic programs to approximately 400 students.
During my affiliation with Cambridge College I have designed and facilitated courses in education and management with titles and an implicit pedagogy which emphasize "the examined life", "critical thinking", and "reflective practice". I have avoided the term "teacher/professor" because I am fearful that it connotes a false sense of intellectual superiority. I comfortably accept and assume an academic mantle of "co-professor" with those involved in a course. I have clearly learned more about me, as an adult educator, as an equal member of the actual, lived dialogue than as the sole proprietor of any academic monologue. I feel that the passion and power of education is created when we provide a context for safety, acceptance, and self defined discovery.
In many ways I see adult education as my "calling". I have enjoyed a rich, diverse, and enlightening career, emanating from my transdisciplinary theoretical framework and praxis. Creativity and critical reflection are two core values that I hold strong, in an oath that education must focus on the "whole person". We are intellectual, emotional, physical, and spiritual beings who are capable and deserving deserving of the rewards and liberation of education. I see adult education as a vehicle for promise and hope. Truth be told, I like being a "cast member" in this "empowerment theater".
The late anthropologist and philosopher of myths, Joseph Campbell, is quoted as saying ,"If you see the step on the path ahead of you , it is not your path." Who am I ? Where am I coming from ? Where am I going ? The inner dialogue generated by the first two inquiries has been a constant companion on the path of my life. I expect they will always travel with me. The third question invites me into a future that I look forward to discovering, through scholarship and critique, in a community of mutual learning.
Email contact: Joe Miglio
