Taurie Gittings-Wheeler | MDC Endowed Teaching Chair 2023

Just as the arts transformed her life while growing up in Miami, Professor Taurie Gittings-Wheeler enriches Miami Dade College students, faculty colleagues and the overall community through experiences in the arts
and humanities.
A performer and artisan with roots in Jamaica and Georgia, Gittings-Wheeler teaches Humanities, Art, Cinema Appreciation and Theater Appreciation courses at West Campus. She consistently takes learning beyond the classroom, whether to a museum or cinema, or for a hands-on experience, such as creation of a campus mural or the launch of a Free Little Library at a Doral coffee shop or city park.
Passionate about global education, Gittings-Wheeler proposed the first study-abroad course at Eduardo J. Padrón Campus and led 54 students
on change-making trips to England, France, Italy and Greece between
2016 and 2019.
Gittings-Wheeler, who taught high school drama for 13 years, joined the MDC faculty full time in 2013 at Padrón Campus and transferred in 2020 to West Campus. At both campuses she launched a Creative Arts Club and was named Advisor of the Year for the Padron Campus club’s achievements.
Sharing her expertise with faculty, Gittings-Wheeler trained professors on how to engage their students virtually throughout 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded. In 2022, she
created the faculty training for professors teaching the first class
of Rising Black Scholars.
Gittings-Wheeler is a proud of alumna of the New World School of the Arts high school, subsequently earning her Bachelor of Science in Theatre at Florida A&M University and later adding Master’s degrees in Interdisciplinary Arts from Nova Southeastern University and in Art and Visual Media from
Tiffin University.