Daniel Vollaro: Directory

Dr. Daniel Vollaro is an assistant professor of English, scholar and communication consultant who faithfully practices experiential learning pedagogy and service learning in his classes at GGC. Believing that students learn best by doing, his classes often revolve around semester-long projects that require students to interact with people and organizations outside of the college. He wants his students to experience something real in his classes, whether it be successfully building and launching a blog or completing a community service project off campus. He believes that education works best when students are given more choice and autonomy in the classroom.

Vollaro is interested in the relationships between power and literature. His dissertation explored how anthologies of American literature construct historical origin stories about the United States. He has published articles on Harriet Beecher Stowe’s meeting with Abraham Lincoln, Briton Hammon’s Narrative, the Transcendentalist publication The Dial, and Utopian Communities in Nineteenth Century America. He is currently working on a series of articles about the confluence between anarchism and American literature. He serves on the boards of the digital journal Notes on Teaching English and the literacy organization Read Aloud Chattanooga. 

With 15 years of teaching experience in the humanities and extensive professional experience as a journalist and an editor/writer for the publishing industry, Vollaro brings a praxis-oriented approach to his teaching of professional writing courses. His writing classes are often built around service learning projects wherein students work with nonprofits to improve their internal and external communication. His journalism courses train students to be citizen journalists who publish their stories online.

He holds a master's degree in Jewish-Christian studies from Seton Hall University and has taught a wide variety of humanities courses, including American and world literature, religious studies, ethics and philosophy.