 Thomson Professor of Environmental Studies and Professor of English
Writes Her Own
Annie Ingram's faculty biographical sketch is clearly from her own hand, straightforward with just enough poetic flourish. "Professor Annie Ingram is an Americanist who specializes in the nineteenth century and rambles over more extensive territory." As she did growing up: Seattle, New Jersey, Texas, Denmark.... She landed in Davidson in 1994 after studies at Stanford, the Monterey Institute of International Studies and Emory.
Get Out There
Her passion for the outdoors found fertile ground in Davidson Outdoors, which served as a base camp---literally and figuratively---in classes she has created, including Environmental Writing and Wilderness Leadership, Adventures in Literature, and Wilderness, Literature and Environmental Justice. For the experiential portions of these academic courses, Ingram pitched tents in the snow, backpacked in rain, hiked by headlamp long after dark-and watched her students develop into amazing wilderness leaders. Ingram's 2009 Omicron Delta Kappa teaching award citation read in part, "Her passion for the outdoors one student describes as 'relentless--maybe even bordering on bizarre.'"
Inner Discipline
Ingram did her time in meetings and strategy sessions to realize a long-held dream: the interdisciplinary Environmental Studies major. Finding the right alignment of "strong opinions, compromises and dealbreakers" was as much a process as a product. "One of the things that makes me happiest is just how many people were involved in this." Academically, she places equal premium on both innovation and tradition: "You can't be interdisciplinary until you have some disciplinary grounding."
Outward Discipline
She loves to go to The Ranch, a 160-acre property her extended family has long owned in the shadow of Mount Rainier, where she pulled on her first backpack for an overnight trip at the age of seven. The deed is signed by Teddy Roosevelt. In a 21st-century manifestation of the spirit of that first conservationist president, Ingram today tries to limits her air travel for the sake of the planet---one more opportunity to lead by example.
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