Ms. Woodard earned the Bachelor of Arts degree in Literature and Writing at Columbia University and her M.A. in Creative Writing at New York University.  She has published a number of articles and short stories in magazines and has had her work anthologized in Streetlights: Tales of the Urban Black Experience and in Men We Cherish: African American Women Praise the Men in Their Lives.  Her short story collection The Silver Crescent was published last year and she is currently at work on a novel that is loosely drawn from her decade-long experience as a professional dancer with the Dance Theater of Harlem.

Previously Director of Undergraduate Creative Writing at Columbia University, Ms. Woodard has administered a faculty of 32 adjuncts with whom she taught nearly 1000 students each academic year.  She also coordinated the program’s student groups, readings and other activities, and served as advisor to its student-produced literary magazine.  As Director of Undergraduate Studies for approximately 250 undergraduates enrolled in the Columbia College Writing Program, she has advised students on academic and personal matters, maintained their educational and career files, and hired and counseled faculty on issues related to syllabi development and student advising.  As a teacher of writing, Ms. Woodard has taught an introductory course on poetry, prose poetry, drama, and fiction, and intermediate and advanced fiction workshops.  She has led the undergraduate senior honors seminar in which students produce book-length works of fiction and literary nonfiction, and she worked with some ten students each term on independent projects ranging from collections of poetry and short fiction to novels, plays and screenplays.  In her various activities as a teacher, advisor, and administrator, Ms. Woodard has won the praise and respect of her students and her colleagues as someone who seeks the success of her students in all their pursuits.  

Ms. Woodard will move into the College later this month along with a Shetland sheepdog named Jimmy Dean and two cats.  An avid dressage rider, she wants to assure all that her horse Centares will be stabled elsewhere. She comes from a family of mathematicians and scientists, but her own connection to such activities is limited to her being a big fan of Star Trek.  She is also a devotee of film, classical and jazz music, and opera.