When people ask me what I do (instead of who I am, because we often let our jobs define us), I tell them I'm a professor. And when that feels too pretentious, which is often, I usually just say "I teach at the college" and leave it at that. It is the family business, sort of -- my grandfather taught and coached at Roscommon High School for over four decades, my dad taught and coached at Roscommon Middle School and RHS for thirty-some years, and my stepfather taught at Kirtland Community College for about the same length of time. Between the three of them, that's over a century in education.
As I was winding up my Bachelor's degree in the fall of '92, I was starting to think more seriously about a future in higher education. When I started my first semester of grad school classes in psychology at Central Michigan University, I asked my KCC Intro Psych professor if there were any part-time options, and he said there were. However, the next day, he let me know that it was not possible for me to teach at that time, which was probably for the best; after all, I wasn't officially in a Master's program yet, and putting me in front of community college students at the age of 22 wouldn't have been the best idea.
So I waited. I was accepted into the newly created Experimental Social Psychology Master's program at CMU, I started working in front of drunk and hostile crowds at my Boomers Comedy Night DJ/MC gig -- one of the best ways to prepare for adults in a class room -- and I got older. When an opportunity popped up at KCC during the summer of '96, I was able to take advantage of that opening, and I taught as a part-time adjunct faculty member at KCC for six straight semesters from the summer of '96 to the spring of '98.
(How did I get that first opportunity? Well, I'd like to think that I was capable and compelling right out of the box, but that's not true, as my first couple of courses were pretty rough on my part. As I see it, the best thing I had going for me was the fact that much of the administration had been taught by my grandfather and been colleagues with my stepfather. Relationships are an important lubricant in the work world and the social sphere, and those doors opened a bit easier for me because of those connections.)
As the spring of '98 turned to summer, I was living in Brighton and working at WHR in Ann Arbor, while my then-girlfriend had an internship at a newspaper in Howell. My mother happened to find an ad in the Traverse City Record Eagle from North Central Michigan College in Petoskey, looking for a full-time professor of psychology, so I whipped up an application and sent it their way. (At first, I thought it was Northwestern Michigan College in Traverse City, so I had to dial back my excitement when I saw that it was NCMC rather than NMC.) I drove up to Petoskey with my father for the interview; I had on my black double-breasted suit and my hair pulled back in a ponytail, and after the interview I presented a lecture on the Learning chapter of Intro Psych. With the full arrogance of my long-locked youth, I left thinking that I'd be offered the job, and I was proven right a couple weeks later. At the end of August, I packed up our belongings and moved from Brighton to Petoskey, ready to start my full-time gig. I was 27, with a face full of rosacea and a mouth full of sarcasm, and I hit the ground running.
Over the past 18 years, thanks to my two Master's degrees (Experimental Social Psychology and General Humanities), here are the classes I've taught:
Introduction to Psychology (on-ground and on-line); Developmental Psychology (on-ground and on-line); Abnormal Psychology (on-ground and on-line); Social Psychology (on-ground and on-line), Theories of Personality (on-line); Movies and Mental Illness (on-ground); Human Sexuality (on-ground); Internet Searching and Researching (on-ground); Contemporary Film (on-ground and on-line); Film and Literature (on-ground); The Films of Stanley Kubrick (on-ground); The Films and Literature of Stephen King (on-ground); The History of the Rock and Roll Era (on-ground and on-line); History of Music (on-line)
This job has been financially rewarding -- I made more money my first year at NCMC in '98 than my grandfather made in his last year at RHS in '85 -- but it's been less emotionally rewarding than I had hoped. (That's why they call it work, I suppose.) You never truly know if you're making a direct and positive impact on a person's intellect or temperament, or if you're merely a bump in the academic road or a sideshow act of shallow and callow mien. For a while, in my early days, I was awarded the "Teacher Of The Year" award from NCMC students, but it's been over a decade since that's happened, as what was once novel and energetic becomes calcified and repetitive. (I wish I could say that those popularity contest trappings weren't important, but I would be lying to myself.) And the current climate of education -- moreso the K-12 world, but encroaching into "higher ed" with each passing year -- is that teachers are both the cause of and solution to societal ills and economic limitations and so on, which isn't that fulfilling. (I won't even get into the anti-union and anti-intellectual sentiments that permeate our culture.)
And yet, starting next Monday, I'll be starting Year 19 at NCMC, getting ready to teach my six fall classes. It's still exciting, and it's still mentally stimulating. And it's the job I've done the longest in my life, becoming as close to an immortality project -- an idea from philosopher Ernest Becker in 1973, articulating the idea of something that will outlive the physical life of the creator -- as I'll likely achieve. I have more yesterdays than tomorrows as a professor, and while I'm somewhat apprehensive of what my life will look like once I leave the classroom for good, I'm happy that I don't have to worry about that for some time.
Unless, of course, you know something I don't.
As I was winding up my Bachelor's degree in the fall of '92, I was starting to think more seriously about a future in higher education. When I started my first semester of grad school classes in psychology at Central Michigan University, I asked my KCC Intro Psych professor if there were any part-time options, and he said there were. However, the next day, he let me know that it was not possible for me to teach at that time, which was probably for the best; after all, I wasn't officially in a Master's program yet, and putting me in front of community college students at the age of 22 wouldn't have been the best idea.
So I waited. I was accepted into the newly created Experimental Social Psychology Master's program at CMU, I started working in front of drunk and hostile crowds at my Boomers Comedy Night DJ/MC gig -- one of the best ways to prepare for adults in a class room -- and I got older. When an opportunity popped up at KCC during the summer of '96, I was able to take advantage of that opening, and I taught as a part-time adjunct faculty member at KCC for six straight semesters from the summer of '96 to the spring of '98.
(How did I get that first opportunity? Well, I'd like to think that I was capable and compelling right out of the box, but that's not true, as my first couple of courses were pretty rough on my part. As I see it, the best thing I had going for me was the fact that much of the administration had been taught by my grandfather and been colleagues with my stepfather. Relationships are an important lubricant in the work world and the social sphere, and those doors opened a bit easier for me because of those connections.)
As the spring of '98 turned to summer, I was living in Brighton and working at WHR in Ann Arbor, while my then-girlfriend had an internship at a newspaper in Howell. My mother happened to find an ad in the Traverse City Record Eagle from North Central Michigan College in Petoskey, looking for a full-time professor of psychology, so I whipped up an application and sent it their way. (At first, I thought it was Northwestern Michigan College in Traverse City, so I had to dial back my excitement when I saw that it was NCMC rather than NMC.) I drove up to Petoskey with my father for the interview; I had on my black double-breasted suit and my hair pulled back in a ponytail, and after the interview I presented a lecture on the Learning chapter of Intro Psych. With the full arrogance of my long-locked youth, I left thinking that I'd be offered the job, and I was proven right a couple weeks later. At the end of August, I packed up our belongings and moved from Brighton to Petoskey, ready to start my full-time gig. I was 27, with a face full of rosacea and a mouth full of sarcasm, and I hit the ground running.
Over the past 18 years, thanks to my two Master's degrees (Experimental Social Psychology and General Humanities), here are the classes I've taught:
Introduction to Psychology (on-ground and on-line); Developmental Psychology (on-ground and on-line); Abnormal Psychology (on-ground and on-line); Social Psychology (on-ground and on-line), Theories of Personality (on-line); Movies and Mental Illness (on-ground); Human Sexuality (on-ground); Internet Searching and Researching (on-ground); Contemporary Film (on-ground and on-line); Film and Literature (on-ground); The Films of Stanley Kubrick (on-ground); The Films and Literature of Stephen King (on-ground); The History of the Rock and Roll Era (on-ground and on-line); History of Music (on-line)
This job has been financially rewarding -- I made more money my first year at NCMC in '98 than my grandfather made in his last year at RHS in '85 -- but it's been less emotionally rewarding than I had hoped. (That's why they call it work, I suppose.) You never truly know if you're making a direct and positive impact on a person's intellect or temperament, or if you're merely a bump in the academic road or a sideshow act of shallow and callow mien. For a while, in my early days, I was awarded the "Teacher Of The Year" award from NCMC students, but it's been over a decade since that's happened, as what was once novel and energetic becomes calcified and repetitive. (I wish I could say that those popularity contest trappings weren't important, but I would be lying to myself.) And the current climate of education -- moreso the K-12 world, but encroaching into "higher ed" with each passing year -- is that teachers are both the cause of and solution to societal ills and economic limitations and so on, which isn't that fulfilling. (I won't even get into the anti-union and anti-intellectual sentiments that permeate our culture.)
And yet, starting next Monday, I'll be starting Year 19 at NCMC, getting ready to teach my six fall classes. It's still exciting, and it's still mentally stimulating. And it's the job I've done the longest in my life, becoming as close to an immortality project -- an idea from philosopher Ernest Becker in 1973, articulating the idea of something that will outlive the physical life of the creator -- as I'll likely achieve. I have more yesterdays than tomorrows as a professor, and while I'm somewhat apprehensive of what my life will look like once I leave the classroom for good, I'm happy that I don't have to worry about that for some time.
Unless, of course, you know something I don't.
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