Being a college professor is more than just standing up in front of a class. It takes hours to prepare for that class, time to grade and figure out assignments, time to assess whether students are really learning what we intend. We do research to learn new things about the world we inhabit and then try to bring those insights back into the classroom. We advise students. We serve on committees. We go to meetings. We try to make the university a better place all the time.
I am lucky to be among terrific colleagues at Creighton and particularly in the College of Arts and Sciences. It’s a diverse group from philosophers to scientists, historians to journalists. There writers and actors, musicians, theologians … the list goes on and on. And while meetings are not my favorite venue, I am often energized after ones here because we get things done. We listen to new ideas (and some old ones) and often, though not always, things happen.
Creativity and passion are the fuels to making things happen. And I have two excellent examples.
My JM&C colleague Jennie Glaser-Koehler challenged her typography class to come up with their lives in six words, then design those words. The results are in a show called “Just My Type” at the Skutt Student Center. The memoirs and designs will make you laugh and think.
Dr. Baba Jallow came to Creighton’s History Department on a little different route. A journalist in his home of The Gambia in west Africa, he had to leave that life when his own life and that of his family were threatened. He talked to one of my classes today of his willingness to put himself at risk as a journalist because human development depends on the development of minds and the human spirit, things that can’t happen when there is no freedom of expression. His passion for that freedom was inspiring.
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