About

I’m Charlie Gleek. I’m an Assistant Professor in the Catalyst Program at the University of Virginia. I am an experiential, interdisciplinary educator. I work primarily in classroom instruction and program design and evaluation, while also collaborating with my Catalyst colleagues as we pilot the program from 2022 – 2025. For academically inclined readers, you can read my curriculum vitae here.

I earned my Ph.D. in Comparative Cultures, Languages, and Literatures at Florida Atlantic University where my research focused on how bibliographic, biographic, and other paratextual materiality mediates readers’ experiences. I also hold an Ed.D. in Educational Leadership from Lynn University where my work attended to the value simulations and games in classroom settings.

My essays appear in The Chattahoochee Review, Penumbra, i.e.: Inquiry in Education, FAU-URJ, and on Humanities Commons. I’ve also made contributions to two books and published op-eds in IB World Magazine and Education Week. I’m currently working on a series of creative nonfiction essays, some of which are under review, and others which I attend when I’m not teaching.

Prior to coming to the University of Virginia, I taught at Florida Atlantic University, Lynn University, Arizona State University, and Florida International University. I’ve also worked for the International Baccalaureate and at several independent schools in both faculty and administrative roles.

My background and path into the academy were anything but straightforward. I started my vocational life in a warehouse, pulling pallets from deep inside tractor-trailers, slinging boxes, and affixing price tags to merchandise for suburban folks to consume. I worked to bag groceries, stock shelves, and sell all sort of wares on retail floors through every seasonal rush. I spent warm winters and even hotter summers squeezed between grills, fryers, and prep stations as a line cook, and mowed grass and trimmed tropical flora for cash in the year-round south Florida heat for a decade before I went to college full time. I performed these jobs while I slept on couches and floors in rented, shared, or spaces I was otherwise allowed to occupy for the evening, with all my gear stuffed into backpacks, boxes, and stolen milk crates while trying my best with my first artistic love: writing music and playing in bands. The combination of the birth of my daughters and a pretty-rough van crash while the band I played bass for was on tour in the first summer of this millennium, leaving me with a thoroughly broken ankle and some great tales to tell, set me on the path towards teaching, writing, and when I was ready, to pursue a Ph.D.

Today, I live in Charlottesville with my wife Kate and our loveable, aging dog, occasionally sharing our house with our adult daughters when they visit. Off Grounds, you’ll find me biking, hiking, keeping up my bass and drums chops in my basement, part of our church community, tending to our garden which will hopefully produce enough year-round food for us in a few years, cooking, as well as soaking up all the readings, concerts, markets, and other cultural activities that make Charlottesville so special.