
In her hometown of Dallas, Mary is a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) for foster children, a Lifeline Crisis Counselor for The Trevor Project, and a writer for local newsletters. She studies yoga and yoga teaching, relaxes with online language study, and creates pollinator-friendly gardens.
As a writer of poetry and fiction, Mary often describes the experience of those starting their lives over again—much like her four immigrant grandparents and the refugees she taught in New England and Southeast Asia. The online highlight of her month is the meeting of the Multicultural Women’s Book Group in Dallas.
Mary retired from her position as a research coordinator at UCLA's Center for the Study of Evaluation, after which she taught writing at College of the Canyons and studied music theory and vocal performance there. At UCLA, her work focused on standardized test accommodation for English language learners, including linguistic simplification of test items. She has trained many test and survey writers or edited their work. She developed teacher and teacher-training assessment instruments and rubrics.[10-23]
Email: msmarycourtney@gmail.com