by Connor Parks
With the close of another Fall semester on campus comes a pause for reflection: not only for students old and new, but for the faculty who have led classes since early September. Each year, Centre welcomes a handful of new professors across disciplines to expand on new programs, launch long-running careers, and more. This year is no different, with 12 new faculty members joining the campus community across all three divisions: four in Division I, two in Division II, and six in Division III. As these new professors reached the end of their first milestone semester here, I spoke with one new member of each division: Dr. Maya Novak-Herzog in the Politics department, Dr. Kane Anderson in the Theatre department, and Dr. Lauren Mehanna in the Chemistry and Engineering departments, to hear about the experiences and takeaways that have shaped the first step in their futures, however long, here at Centre.
How would you sum up your first semester at Centre in 3 words?
Dr. Novak-Herzog: Fast-paced, overwhelming, and very welcoming! I find the people here to be incredibly friendly, that being the “welcoming”. Both faculty and students are super friendly and really complimentary, which is fun. There’s lots of engagement across disciplines, across divisions, so that’s great. “Overwhelming” in that I’m fresh out of graduate school- I taught in graduate school, but this is my first time as a professor- so not only am I learning the norms and expectations of Centre, but also the norms and expectations of being a professor more generally. Fast-paced because I was actually nervous. I’m used to a quarter system, and this is a semester system, so I thought it’d go slowly (I’ve only ever done quarters in undergrad and grad school), but instead I’d say it’s gone so fast. It’s like as I finish grading an assignment, I realise I need to hand out the prompt for the next, so it’s sort of unending in terms of always being on top of the schedule.
Dr. Kane: Unexpected, adventurous, satisfying. I really enjoy working with the students here, and to meet students that have intellectual curiosity again is pretty bold. I don’t have any illusions about who does all the reading and who doesn’t, but the idea that Centre students want to talk is really cool! I love that students are really doing this for themselves: I have a PhD, so the only person I have to convince myself of anything is myself, but that’s how I’ve justified DoorDashing here in Danville and buying new additions to my collection of 46 coloured suits. Sometimes, as an acting teacher, I think of myself as a campus personality. Theatre is one of the most public faces of a university, so I’m an actor first: I’m always marketing and self-promoting, and it’s part of what I have to do- especially with my suits.
Dr. Mehanna: Let’s say “many new relationships.” I feel like at Centre so far, it’s all been about meeting so many new people, and it’s really fun because it’s people in my own discipline, but now I’m teaching multiple disciplines, so I meet people all over campus all the time. It’s all about many new relationships that I’ve built.
What’s your favourite course you’re teaching this semester? What would you want potential students to know about it?
Dr. Novak-Herzog: I feel like people think my favourite course is the one on reality TV shows, and I do love that course, but I’m really enjoying the other course I’m teaching, which is the political ideologies course. I find that class to be so engaged and so curious about what is going on in the world. We had a great experience where we thought that the government shutdown was going to happen. We talked about it before the shutdown happened, and then it did happen, so we got to talk about it as it was happening, and then finally the government opened up and we got to talk about that today. I’ve found the students to be incredibly informed and engaged, and wanting to talk about what’s going on in the world around them. I’ve also found that students that aren’t super politically engaged want to learn. For an intro class that many students have to take for a tag, it doesn’t feel like there are many people there begrudgingly.
Dr. Kane: I love teaching intro to acting! I could teach Acting 1 any time, all the time. It’s my favourite class, and it’s a lot physically for me: I showed my students how to do cartwheels earlier this week, which was risky with my back problems, but it turned heads. When I look at acting, I try to remember that I’m aware that not everyone’s going to be an actor, but I say theatre skills are life skills. You take an acting class, and you learn how to talk with anyone, because you can say “yes, and” with anything and think “cool, I can build on that.” I try to teach students that part of our commitment is how we make other people look good. A lot of acting is misunderstood: people think it’s all narcissists who are going to run things themselves, whereas good acting is always about the other person and connecting with them. It’s my favourite class to teach, and I also teach it to say “you will use these skills elsewhere.” If nothing else, I will teach you to lie to your future supervisor when you need the day off!
Dr. Mehanna: I really enjoy teaching Fluid Mechanics, which is what I’m teaching right now for our engineering track. It’s actually a brand new course, so it’s kinda new for both me and my students at Centre, and we get to shape it in all kinds of new ways. Really, I just hope students come in open minded and ready to learn. We think about fluids all around us all the time: fluids are liquids and gases, and it’s not just liquid fluid flow, but air moving, gaseous fluid flow, so it’s a lot of being able to come in and see all the things we see every day in real life in new perspectives.
How has Centre compared to other teaching experiences you’ve had? How has it differed?
Dr. Novak-Herzog: I taught at Northwestern as a PhD candidate, and then I also taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Centre by far feels the most like a commune and summer camp- it’s the most involved. The faculty are really involved with each other, with the students, and the students know everything about all the programs and staff, which is super unique. It’s impossible to hide: I don’t think anyone should come here if they want to fade into the background, and as faculty it’s also impossible to hide. Even just walking around Danville, I find myself constantly running into students, especially at Walmart. I also think the expectations students have of themselves are very high. I’m mostly teaching first years right now, so that’s a different experience, but I’ve found that we’re sort of riding that wave together in that this is my first year as faculty and their first years in college. We’re all approaching it from this place of awe and novelty, overwhelmedness and confusion. That’s different from me teaching at other institutions where you go to your class, sometimes you see people you know on campus, but there certainly isn’t this sense that you’re all walking around the summer camp grounds together.
Dr. Kane: I’ve been lucky in that I cut my teeth at liberal arts colleges, but I’ve also taught at big state schools across the country. Centre has a sense of community that I think is really exciting: it’s welcoming, and it feels like people want to have conversations. To what degree we all want to reach a consensus, I don’t know if that’s actually the goal that our education should have, but people want to talk about things.I’m also a fierce advocate for study abroad. I’ve studied abroad many times, and I would tell anybody that the best training for being an actor would be to go abroad for a semester. “You mean to study acting?” No- just go abroad! Centre encourages students to study abroad, and they acknowledge that there’s a part of your learning that needs to go beyond the college campus, to say that we’re looking for activities not just to make you a better student, but to show you that the world is better than advertised and that you can make an impact and change things. When I was in South Dakota, students just didn’t believe that, and it was heartbreaking for me, since the greatest joy I’ve had has been helping students study abroad.
Dr. Mehanna: The thing about Centre that I absolutely love is how personal the education feels. I came from a university where I was in courses, or taught courses, that had upwards of 60-80 students per class, which really isn’t a very personal relationship when it comes to education. You look out and see students with blank stares, maybe paying attention, and there’s not really a good way to engage with everyone in the classroom. I really think that here at Centre, because of smaller classes, students aren’t afraid to put a stamp on their own learning. They’re not afraid to come talk to professors and participate in class, and I think that that makes for much more well rounded students. Whenever I taught undergrad level classes, we were in large lecture halls, and it’s hard to really get that feel of whether people are really on track with what you’re talking about. I then transitioned into teaching (or helping to teach) some grad-level courses, and those classes scale down in size significantly. Now, you start going from 60 people to maybe 10-15, and those classes mimic a lot more what you see here at Centre. We get to have a lot more discussions in class, more conversations, and you get to have a little more fun with it.
What have you learned most from your students so far this year?
Dr. Novak-Herzog: A lot of my students know a lot of things about politics that I don’t know! The biggest thing I learned- and I want to get this right- is that Reagan won the election by striking a deal with Iran. My students brought that up in class and I, to be honest, had never heard about it. It was brand new to me, and I’d say that’s the biggest thing they’ve taught me. They’re doing that all the time: they know a lot about politics. The other big thing they’ve taught me is about Kentucky, and how we got Andy Beshear as governor because of education and teachers’ pensions. I didn’t know anything about that, and I had to ask them how we ended up with a Democratic governor. They taught me that, and they’re teaching me a lot about Kentucky because I’m brand new here!
Dr. Kane: The most exciting thing that happens to me is when I see somebody get it. It clicks, and I see them do a good performance, and I get to tell them “you did so good!” and they’re like “was I?”. One, I’m glad you’re not analysing what you’re doing, because that’s not great acting praxis, but I get to see them go “ohhh”. When I tell someone that I study superheroes as a superheroologist, people ask “you can do that?”. I say you can study anything you want as long as you find the right framework. Just do it, and enter into that discourse community. Here at Centre, students have a curiosity unlike other places I’ve worked where the framework was “I’m studying this… cool, so I have to be this thing when I graduate.” There’s a lot more out there, and the idea that your college degree must dictate your future is problematic. Here, people genuinely want to enjoy things and try things, and I think that’s awesome! Centre students are open to being surprised and having things questioned in a way that doesn’t feel like the end of the world.
Dr. Mehanna: I think the thing I’ve learned the most is that my students aren’t afraid to take risks. I feel like they’re ok with feeling that they can give me answers in class: that it’s ok if they’re maybe a little bit off the right answer, and then we can actually discuss it. I feel like that’s something that maybe I didn’t always know before- that students in different settings may not be willing to take those risks or put themselves out there, and then have the opportunity to potentially not be correct. Here, they’re willing to have that conversation and start that dialogue of “why would this be correct, why would this not be correct”, and kinda go down the different paths. I think those kinds of conversations are something I’ve really learned as to how we communicate when things are right, and also when things may not be correct, and I’ve thought that’s been really interesting.