Patricia McDonough

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Patricia McDonough has been teaching at UCLA since 1991. Her courses, affecting future teachers and education researchers, target issues of preparation, equity, and access to higher education.

McDonough is conscious of the important racial and cultural issues that students of color bring with them to the university. Pat is skilled at creating a classroom environment in which students feel safe discussing the controversial and sensitive issues of race, class, gender and sexuality.

She requires post-class e-mail reflections for students to share what they learned, what worked in class, and what didn’t and could be changed. These reflections are a way for her to weekly assess student learning, take the intellectual temperature of the class, respond to students’ concerns, deal with problematic situations and plan for the remaining class sessions so as to maximize student learning.

Evaluations have included, “What a gift it was to have Pat as an instructor. She pushed us, made us think and brought research and passion to everything.” One student noted, “Although the workload for this course required an enormous amount of ‘NoDoz,’ I would take this course over just to have the opportunity to work with Pat again.”

Two graduate students once asked her why she is so accessible. She responded, “Your work is my work. It’s the most valuable part of my job.”

A graduate of the University of Massachusetts, George Washington University and Stanford, McDonough explains that “Teaching is exciting to me because I have the opportunity to share my knowledge and passion for research with students who are learning it for the first time.”

The scope and reach of McDonough’s scholarship and teaching at UCLA have influenced the adoption of policies in California and nationally, encouraging thousands of middle and high school teachers, counselors and administrators to increase postsecondary access for all students; especially underrepresented, first-generation college bound students.