Dr. Laura Wright is an assistant professor in the English department, and is the Director of Graduate Studies in English at Western Carolina University. She received her undergraduate degree from Appalachian State University, her MA from East Carolina University, and her PhD from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She previously taught at a small liberal arts college in New York, and she currently lives in Asheville, NC. She originally lived and grew up Greensboro, NC.
On a daily basis, Dr. Wright is a very involved faculty member. When she arrives on campus, she first returns phone calls, checks her email and prepares for the classes she teaches. She then goes on to teach, but her day does not stop there. She evaluates applications for graduate study and admits potential graduate students, not to mention mentoring and advising them as well. On top of all that, she also serves on various committees such as the Faculty Senate where she regularly attends various meetings associated with committee work. When she leaves campus, she grades papers and continues working on her own scholarship.
Her days are very busy, but Dr. Wright says she does not mind. She considers teaching to be the biggest advantage of her position.
She comments, “I love to teach, and my favorite part of my job is engaging with students. I love literature and I sometimes can’t believe how lucky I am to be able to teach it for a living.”
Dr. Wright enjoys the fact that she does not do the same, 8-hour routine everyday. She has plenty of things to fill her day up, but considers the only disadvantage of her job to be the difficulty in separating her work from her personal life. Because it doesn’t follow the “9 to 5” schedule, she often doesn’t have a lot of time for the other aspects in her life. She finds it hard to leave work at work.
Dr. Wright loves being outdoors and practically does everything associated with the outdoors, like swimming, hiking, walking her dogs, laying in her backyard hammock, and running, often five to six miles a day. She watches a lot of movies and considers herself a huge movie buff. Volunteering at Animal Haven in Asheville and Animal Compassion Network are also some of her many hobbies, and if not busy working for Western Carolina University, she says she would own her own no-kill animal shelter.
