J. Indigo Eriksen

Indigo Eriksen is a feminist, Freirean educator.

Indigo Eriksen returned to Virginia after a thirteen year absence during which she lived in Oregon, Mexico and Guatemala, and California. After two years teaching at Blue Ridge Community College in the Shenandoah Valley, Indigo relocated to NVCC Woodbridge in 2015 where she is a full-time faculty member in a division deeply committed to student success, engaged teaching methodology, and freedom of expression.

Indigo holds a Master of Fine Arts Degree in Writing, a Master of Arts Degree in Comparative Literature, and a Graduate Certificate in Immigrant Literacies. She is currently pursuing her Doctorate in Writing and Rhetoric with a Certificate in Women and Gender Studies at George Mason University. Her previous service to the VCCS includes participation in the first two cohorts of the Chancellor’s OER Adoption Grant, an NEH grant for Understanding the Non-West: Strengthening Global Humanities Courses in Virginia’s Community Colleges, the VCCS Developmental Education Retreat, and the Master Teacher Retreat. She has served on the board of The Northern Virginia Review, presented at NILOA, co-founded with her students the Women in Literature Anthology Stolen Tongues, and was honored with an Excellence in Teaching award. She served on the board of TYCA-Se, was co-founder and president of the graduate student organization for writing and rhetoric at GMU, served as the Graduate Writing Coordinator at GMU, served on the graduate caucus and as graduate fellow of NeMLA, and frequently presents her work at regional and national conferences. She is a published poet and was awarded the 2019 Mary Roberts Rinehart prize in nonfiction from GMU.

She spent three years working as an environmental and human rights advocate in Guatemala and Mexico (2004-2006). From 2010-2012 Indigo worked as a tutor to inner city high school students and volunteered as mentor to high school poets in the California’s East Bay through the RAW Talent program. Upon her return to the Shenandoah Valley, Indigo volunteered at the Harrisonburg Rockingham Free Clinic as translator, front desk assistant, and writer on special projects. Her current work focuses learner-centered, feminist, anti-oppression pedagogies.