About Me
Cassandra Gerhard is the Professional Development Coordinator for the Arizona Department of Public Safety (DPS) and a member of Adjunct Faculty for Rio Salado College in partnership with Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training (AZ POST) and DPS. In these roles, she builds, teaches, coordinates, and facilitates several courses and programs on a variety of subjects for DPS, AZ POST, and Rio Salado College, all related to the personal and professional growth of students, especially law enforcement personnel across the state of Arizona.
Cassandra is an Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training (AZ POST) approved Specialist Instructor in the topics of Cultural Awareness, Interpersonal Communications, and Records & Reports, and she is a Master Instructor (MI) for the AZ POST General Instructor program, teaching law enforcement professionals how to teach.
Cassandra’s passion is communication in many forms and languages. While English is her native language, her passion for communication and for other languages began as a child, growing up around American Sign Language and continued to grow over the years. As an adult, she also learned multiple other languages (Spanish, Arabic, and a little bit of Peruvian Sign Language) and earned multiple related degrees and certificates.
Cassandra completed a Bachelor of Science degree in Bible and Spanish then joined the Army studying Arabic and earning an Associate of Arts in Arabic from the military’s language school. Having formally studied other languages, Cassandra developed a new love and passion for English, and it is now her goal to help others to develop their knowledge, skills, and love of English, as well. As a result, she completed a Bachelor of Arts in English and a Master of Education (M.Ed.) with a specialty in Curriculum and Instruction and is currently in the process of pursuing a Master of Arts in English. The learning she gleaned from these programs has also been beneficial in her current role within DPS and will be instrumental in helping her take on her next goal of teaching English.
“You can never understand one language until you understand at least two.”
– Geoffrey Willans