Matthew Post - Acting Director
B.Hum., Carleton University (2000); M.A., Carleton University (2003); Ph.D., University of Dallas (2015)
Dr. Matthew Post serves as Acting Director of the St. Ambrose Center for Catholic Liberal Education and Culture and Assistant Professor of Humanities at the University of Dallas. He is responsible for initiating, developing, and supporting K–12 teacher and school leader formation programs, with a specific emphasis on fostering character and principled, prudent leadership. Among other things, he has launched graduate programs, a K–12 Catholic curriculum, and a lab school. Dr. Post is an ardent advocate of the renewal of classical liberal arts education, helping to build networks and infrastructure that serve schools and educators throughout the U.S. and abroad. In addition to writing about the great books, he conducts field research into the relationship between school culture and motivation for virtuous conduct.
Shannon K. Valenzuela - Assistant Director
B.A., University of Dallas (2000); Ph.D., University of Notre Dame (2007)
Dr. Shannon Valenzuela is an Assistant Director of the St. Ambrose Center for Catholic Liberal Education and Culture and an Affiliate Assistant Professor of Humanities at the University of Dallas. She currently teaches in the Classical Education Graduate Program and for the English Department. She has also spent many years working with students in K-12 education, where she has had the privilege of teaching such varied subjects as theology, natural science, Algebra, Trigonometry, pre-Calculus, world history, European literature, and Latin. She has experience in designing classical curricula in science and history which are aligned with state standards. Dr. Valenzuela is also passionate about her work as a storyteller: she is a novelist, short story writer, and an award-winning screenwriter with representation in Hollywood. She is the writer, director, and narrator of the limited series THE QUEST, produced by the University of Dallas and distributed by EWTN. She writes and speaks on topics such as wonder and the imagination, discovering and leading a purpose-driven life, principles of storytelling, and creative entrepreneurship.
Michael West - Assistant Director
B.A., University of Dallas (2006); M.A., University of Houston (2009); Ph.D., Columbia University (2018)
Dr. Michael West is Assistant Director of the St. Ambrose Center and Affiliate Assistant Professor of Humanities at the University of Dallas, where he teaches courses in the Classical Education Graduate Program. His research focuses on Renaissance literature, especially the theater of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. He has previously taught courses in literature, writing, and Catholic Studies at the University of Houston, Columbia University, and Sacred Heart University. He is also the host of the Liberal Learning for Life Podcast.
William Perales - Director of PreK-12 Curriculum and Professional Development Services
William Perales has worked in Catholic education for over twenty years as a teacher and principal at both the elementary and high school levels. A graduate of the St. Ignatius Institute’s Catholic Great Books Program at the University of San Francisco where he majored in English and Philosophy, William also holds degrees in Theology (MA), Philosophy (MA), and Educational Leadership and Policy Studies (M.Ed.).
He has led and assisted schools with transitioning to a classical liberal arts education, designed curriculum for grades K-12, led professional development workshops, and designed and led instruction for a diocesan catechist formation program. In the Diocese of Fort Worth, he served on their Curriculum Committee and assisted with developing and communicating the Catholic classical vision for diocesan Catholic schools. He helped establish and led instruction in Fort Worth’s New Teacher Formation Institute, introducing new teachers to the vision of Catholic education and developing an approach to instruction that is rooted in the classical liberal arts tradition of cultivating faith, virtue, and wisdom.
Laura Eidt - Director, Latin through Stories: A K-5 Curriculum
B.A., University of Hamburg; M.A., University of Texas at Austin; Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin
Having studied English, Spanish, French, Italian, and Latin in addition to her native German, at various points in her life, Dr. Eidt is passionate about foreign language teaching and learning, and regularly teaches courses on foreign language pedagogy. She also works with UD’s classical curriculum team and has offered professional development workshops at various K-12 schools on the art of narration, Socratic Seminar, grammar and sentence diagramming, as well as Latin and modern foreign language pedagogy. As part of her work with the classical curriculum team, she is currently writing UD’s K-5th grade curriculum Latin through Stories, a near-immersion, input-based curriculum that focuses on meaningful language acquisition through communicating ideas and stories.
Christophe Rico - Fellow
Dr. Christophe Rico is a French linguist. He holds a PhD in Greek linguistics (University of Sorbonne, 1992) and the official French accreditation to direct doctoral research (University of Strasbourg, 2011). He is a professor of Greek Philology at the Ecole Biblique et Archéologique Française de Jérusalem. Since 2011, he has been the dean of the Polis Institute. He has published several language methods and books on Greek and Hebrew philology as well as many articles on general linguistics, ancient Greek linguistics, semantics, translations studies, and second language acquisition.