Nancy Harmon (Director) has been an educator for 35 plus years in a variety of places where her curiosity about the world and its people has taken her. Nancy's professional career began at a small liberal arts college in Michigan, through which she spent her junior year studying in Beirut, Lebanon. While there, Nancy tutored children in a Palestinian refugee camp and was touched and inspired by their eagerness to learn. Thus began her career in multi-cultural education. After receiving her BA, Nancy returned to Lebanon as a volunteer for the YMCA and spent an eye-opening year living and teaching in a Druse village, followed by another year at a private school in the mountains.

Nancy continued to pursue her interest in multi-cultural education back in the US, teaching GED English to migrant farmworkers and to Native Americans in a high school on the former Klamath Indian reservation. Nancy then decided she wanted to focus on teaching English language learners, so she entered a master's program at University of New Mexico, a state whose native cultures had long interested her. With her MA completed, she began teaching on the Navajo reservation where Nancy was the entire English department at the high school level in a K-12 community school. Here she became passionate about Native American literature, the work of Paolo Freire, and media literacy. Nancy left the "rez" after 11 years to serve as a trainer for Peace Corps in Eritrea, East Africa, at a hopeful time when this tiny country had just won its independence from Ethiopia.

Nancy in Uzbekistan, photo Roger Harmmon

In 2000, Nancy married Roger Harmon, a cultural anthropologist, and they went together to Bangkok, Thailand, where Roger was Country Director for Peace Corps and she was Peace Corps "mom" to the adventurous, idealistic volunteers. In addition, Nancy taught and supported students in a graduate program at Chulalonghorn University and volunteered at a non-profit organization that advocated for the rights of sex workers in Bangkok.

Upon returning to the US, Nancy became a part of an innovative, teacher-run charter school in Albuquerque's South Valley. In addition to creating and implementing a rigorous academic curriculum for the mostly Hispanic student body, teachers wore many other hats. The school gained recognition nationally for its service learning program, where Nancy served as a coordinator for two years. She was excited to witness the growth in confidence and direction that service learning brought to her students.

The year 2010 brought new opportunities when Nancy renewed her acquaintance with Denise Ames. They realized how many interests they shared, including that of wanting to distill all they'd learned as educators over the years into curriculum materials with a different focus from those of large textbook publishers. Nancy was excited to join Denise at the Center for Global Awareness. At the same time, Nancy's mother fell and broke her hip, and Nancy and Roger decided to move to San Diego to help her mother and her disabled father. Nancy and Roger now live in both Albuquerque and San Diego with their dog, Salsa.

In addition to being a part of CGA and helping her parents, Roger and Nancy enjoy exploring the world with fellow travelers through his travel business, Worldviews 2000. When at home, she is an avid reader, gardener and cook, and loves spending time with their three "spirit" grandchildren in San Diego.