Ignatian Teaching Fellows
The Innovative Teaching Fellowship's name was changed to Ignatian Teaching Fellowship in 2025.
Current Ignatian Teaching Fellows
Michael A. Mancini, Ph.D.
Fall 2025
Michael Mancini (Ph.D., M.S.W. University at Albany, N.Y.) is a professor in the School
of Social Work. At SLU, he teaches graduate courses that focus on assessment, diagnosis
and treatment of behavioral health conditions across the lifespan. His current research
focuses on the implementation of integrated behavioral health practices in health
and mental health settings. In 2021, he published a book titled Integrated Behavioral
Health Practice that focused on the integration of evidence-based behavioral health
practices in health settings for common behavioral health issues including depression,
anxiety, trauma, addiction and violence. He is currently a member of the evaluation
team for, Life Outside of Violence, a hospital-based violence intervention program
that provides social and behavioral health services to youth experiencing community
violence. He is also a co-Investigator on a four-year federal grant (2021-2025) from
the Health Research and Services Administration (HRSA) titled, Strengthening the Behavioral
Health Workforce for Children and Youth (2021-2025). This project led to the development
of a multidisciplinary fellowship focused on educating behavioral health providers
in social work, psychiatry, psychology, and medical family therapy to provide integrated
trauma-informed behavioral health services to at-risk children, adolescents and transitional
age youth.
As an Ignatian Fellow, Michael plans to develop a course focused on understanding and implementing antiracist practices in social work. This course, required for all social work graduate students, will focus on social justice, critical reflection and action. By the end of the course students will be able to critically examine and understand the concepts of race and racism, white supremacy, patriarchy, and heteronormativity through the critical analysis of social work values and ethics. Students will also be able to implement antiracist social work practices that are affirming to those with identities that have been historically marginalized and targeted at the micro, mezzo and macro levels as well as build collaborative coalitions to dismantle oppressive systems of power and domination in organizations, communities and systems.
Barb Yemm, D.P.T.
Fall 2025
Barb Yemm, D.P.T., has a B.S. in Physical Therapy from Saint Louis University, a Master of Health Science from the University of Indianapolis, and a D.P.T. in Physical Therapy from Marymount University. She is a board-certified specialist in Orthopedic Physical Therapy. Yemm is an APTA Credentialed Clinical Instructor. She teaches in physical therapy professional coursework including Musculoskeletal Conditions II, III and IV. She maintains her clinical practice and is the sirector of the SLU Pro Bono Physical Therapy Services where students engage in physical therapy management of under and uninsured community members through both coursework and volunteer opportunities.
As a participant in the Ignatian Teaching Fellowship, Yemm is eager to refine teaching practices that emphasize cura personalis — care for the whole person — even in large settings. Drawing inspiration from Ignatian pedagogy, she is particularly interested in how reflection, action, and collaborative learning can be integrated into the teaching of larger groups, with the goal of fostering both intellectual growth and personal development and will be focusing on the Musculoskeletal Conditions II course taught in the Fall 2025.
Upcoming Ignatian Teaching Fellows
Jerry Edris
INTO SLU
Spring 2026
Jerry Edris is an associate professor of English as a Second Language. He teaches graduate and undergraduate courses for international emerging multilingual students. His courses focus on helping his students develop the linguistic, academic, and cultural skills needed to succeed in an American higher education institution. He earned a B.A. degree in English from Clarion University of Pennsylvania and an M.A.T. degree in teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) from Webster University.
He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in higher education administration from Saint Louis University. His research interests include culturally responsive teaching pedagogy, translanguaging practices in education, and refugee education. He will use the opportunity presented by the Ignatian Teaching Fellowship to further develop a new micro credential course in professional English communication skills for international emerging multilingual graduate students.
Whitney Linsenmeyer, Ph.D.
Nutrition and Dietetics
Spring 2026
Whitney Linsenmeyer, Ph.D., is an assistant professor and program director in the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics. She teaches undergraduate courses including Foundations in Nutrition, Advanced Nutrition, Quantity Foods and Research Seminar. Linsenmeyer co-founded the Transgender Health Collaborative at SLU, a faculty-led network of researchers and clinicians working with the transgender community throughout SLU and partner organizations. Her own research centers on gender-affirming nutrition care for transgender and gender expansive communities.
As an Ignatian Teaching Fellow, Linsenmeyer will be redesigning Foundations in Nutrition, an introductory nutrition course she has been teaching for the past decade. This is a large enrollment course that welcomes students majoring and minoring in nutrition, as well as those fulfilling their Core requirement for Ways of Thinking: Natural and Applied Sciences. She is enthusiastic about the opportunity to reimagine a a course she has now taught over 15 times.
Recent Past Ignatian Teaching Fellows
Lucy Cashion
Spring 2025
Lucy Cashion (M.F.A. Theatre, Columbia University in the City of New York) is an associate professor of theatre and the director of the Theatre & Dance Program in the Department of Visual and Performing Arts. At SLU she primarily teaches directing courses and regularly directs plays in the University’s theatrical Season. Professionally, she creates experimental adaptations of canonical works, often collaborating with several groups of people to devise theatrical productions. Her adaptation of Antigone (produced by Equally Represented Arts & SATE; August 2019) was a creative collaboration among SLU Theatre students, Prison Performing Arts participants at the Women’s Eastern Reception, Diagnostic, and Correctional Center, and professional, St. Louis theatre artists. Cashion is the artistic director of ERA and a guest director with PPA. Recently with ERA, she produced and directed the album SHE (2021), a radio play by Nancy Bell. Most recently with PPA, she directed Hag-Seed by Stacey Lents, adapted from Margaret Atwood’s novel by the same name, at the Northeastern Correctional Center. She currently directing Saint Joan of Arc for PPA at the W.E.R.D.C.C.
In Spring 2023, Cashion designed the course ‘Collaboration: Arts Incubator’ in the Learning Studio. In this course, students will collaborate to create writings, films, and performances that investigate large questions. These questions could be related to specific topics, such as an historical event, or broader phenomena, such as a fear of death. The course will challenge students to conduct these investigations together and within the parameters of an artistic form. The Learning Studio will facilitate turning the classroom into a laboratory for artistic creation and collaboration.
R. Lauren Miller, Ed.D.
Fall 2024
R. Lauren Miller is an activist, published poet, artist, and mathematician. Lauren is an assistant professor in the Mathematics and Statistics Department. She is also the faculty coordinator of the college prep program through Saint Louis University’s Prison Education Program. She has over four years of experience working with incarcerated students. She has experience teaching developmental algebra through calculus III, statistics, and mathematics for education majors. She received her bachelor's degree in mathematics from Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in 2015. In 2017, she received her master's in mathematics from Saint Louis University. She completed her Ed. D in collaborative high impact instruction from Fontbonne University in May of 2021. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in education policy and equity from Saint Louis University.
Her research and course development focus on math remediation and supporting formally incarcerated and nontraditional students. She will be using the Innovative Teaching fellowship to redesign Intermediate Algebra to use standards based grading, and culturally reposonsive teaching methods. This course is a prerequisite for all math courses and helps students build a solid math foundation.