Faculty and Staff
Claudia Y Heinemann-Priest
Title: | Instructor of English |
Department: | Humanities/English USC Lancaster |
Email: | chpriest@sc.edu |
Phone: | 803-313-7470 |
Office: | Native American Studies Center 119 South Main Street Lancaster, SC |
Office Hours: | M, Tu, W 11-3, Th 2-4 (by email or text) |
Resources: | Virtual Th 12-2 (by email or text) August 25 - December 1 January 20 - April 30 |
Background
Claudia Y. Heinemann-Priest lives in Rock Hill, SC with her husband, Robert, son Alex, born in 1997, and daughter Alyssa, born in 2000.
Mrs. Priest was the linguist for the Catawba Cultural Preservation Project from 1995-2004.
She has continued working with the Catawba Indian Nation, while teaching at Winthrop
University, Chester Middle School, and York Comprehensive High School. She teaches
full-time at USC Lancaster since 2007 and has been at the growing Native American
Studies Center since 2012.
She was born in Ontario, Canada and she grew up in Canada, Germany, Spain and France.
She went to school in Canada, Germany and Spain, and graduated from Waterloo Collegiate
Institute in Canada. She earned her B.A. from University of Waterloo, Canada, her
M.L.A. from Winthrop University and her M.A. in Linguistics from USC. She is currently
pursuing a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at USC Columbia.
She successfully passed her Comprehensive Exams in January and April of 2017 and her Oral Exams in May 2017. She is currently working on her dissertation.
She learned German as her first language, French and English by the time she was three.
She learned Spanish while going to school in Spain when she was nine. She took Russian
in University and started to learn Greek and Japanese on her own. She has been working
on the Catawba language since 1995. Languages have always been a part of her life.
She loved Chemistry, Geography and Mathematics in high school, and wanted to become
a Geological Engineer. Then in the first two years of University, she did Theater
until she finally realized that she just was not going to get away from her language
background.
Mrs. Priest taught German in her Saturday German Language School when she was sixteen
and kept on teaching various subjects, mostly languages and literature, since then.
She has taught pre-school through college level.
She did her first big translation when she was nineteen, and has not stopped translating
since. She has translated for individuals and big corporations, such as Siemens-Westinghouse
and Husqvarna. She owned a translating business, which she did when she was not at
the Catawba Cultural Preservation Project (CCPP) until the birth of her daughter in
2000. She went back to college in 2001 to earn a second Master’s degree (harder to
do with kids). She finished in 2005, but didn’t graduate until August 2007. She started
teaching at USCL in August of 2007.
She enjoys working with children. She tries to teach children both hands-on and concepts
of languages, literature, and culture.
Mrs. Priest spends as much as possible with her family, which doesn’t leave too much
time for anything else. She likes to read, write, create, and watch specific movies.
She rides a motorcycle and goes camping whenever she can!
Even though she dislikes the headaches and backaches she gets from sitting and staring
at the computer screen too long, she enjoys practicing linguistics and comparative
literature. While comparative literature makes connections, linguistics as a field
is like a puzzle. She love puzzles and it is a challenge to find that missing or hiding
piece.
Linguistics and comparative literature are definitely not for everybody. You really
have to love what you do. For the most part, you are not going to become rich practicing
linguistics and doing comparative literature. A lot of people are going to ask you
what purpose your field has. You spend a lot of time explaining what it is that you
do, exactly