Professor Spotlight: Amy Steinbugler

Amy Steinbugler. Photo courtesy of the Dickinson College website.

Professor Spotlight: Amy Steinbugler

Professor Steinbugler is a beloved member of Dickinson’s sociology department who also teaches statistics. This semester she also teaches a first-year seminar named “Queers in space and place” which explores queerness, the history of homosexuality in America and the spaces queer people have occupied in the past and present. 

Prior to teaching, Steinbugler attended Middlebury College but soon transferred to Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. At Evergreen, she studied her passions such as feminism and social inequalities which eventually led her back to the east when she enrolled in a graduate degree program at Temple University. “I had really great mentors that helped me figure out how to write and write well,” she mentions.

Steinbugler is candid and says that she did not always want to be a professor. Inspired by people like Howie Wynette, Steinbugler “wanted to write theory and think about theory.” So, what changed? Steinbugler says “the great thing about graduate school is that interests develop over time.” She has been teaching at Dickinson since 2008 and when asked how she found Dickinson, Steinbugler comments “I was living in Philly so Dickinson was certainly on my radar in terms of liberal arts colleges…it was my first real gig.”

Professor Steinbugler still lives in Philadelphia and has since 1999. Although the commute to Carlisle can be tiring at times, she loves Dickinson because she can “have an active research life but also can enjoy teaching and teach in a way I feel is best.” During her time at the college  she has come to appreciate Carlisle, its charm and peacefulness. When she’s not teaching or taking care of her two small children, she enjoys hiking, camping and doing anything outside. She also loves playing board games and card games like bridge. 

To current Dickinsonians, she advises students to be grateful for where they are and to enjoy the moment, even if times are hard. She also wants students to take their own ideas seriously, to believe in your own self and, most importantly, to believe that you are a person with something worthwhile to say.