Hello from Panera,
I am sitting with some hot tea and waiting for my colleague and friend to arrive. I first met him on a Kraków corner with two Bloomsburg students and more extensively on a bus riding with a group of students to Auschwitz (Oświęcim). This somewhat slight and soft-spoken professor, Mykola, with Eastern/Central heritage, would become one of my most treasured colleagues and friend in my time here in Bloomsburg. He is also one of the most brilliant individuals I’ve ever met. Perhaps the most accomplished polyglot I know, he was a medical doctor before he left Europe. However, those are the basics, his understanding of pretty much every thing will boggle your mind because it rolls out of him in such an understated manner that you often fail to recognize how profound he is. Additionally his wry sense of humor, his ability to mystify everyone, and his unflappability make him all the more interesting. He is one of the people, one of the colleagues, I will miss the most. I probably have a better chance of finding him in Europe than I will in his office.
As I sit here writing, I am waiting on two papers in my 400 level course. Once I complete their evaluation, submitting that course to Banner will complete my last academic semester as a professor in PASSHE, our state system. As many know, I have pondered when I should retire for a couple years, but last summer I knew it was time to make that move, and so the last lap of a complete semester, while as busy as ever, had a different feeling to it. I did not suffer from the academic version of senioritis, but I did find myself thinking about how graciousness might serve all more effectively. Even in our post-COVID world, the day-to-day experience in academe has changed from pre-2020, and some of those changes are dramatic, consequential. What lockdown did to course delivery, social interaction, expectations from all view points, to daily practice is not the college campus experienced even 5 years ago. The vibrancy of mornings, seeing students in the quad or streaming out of classrooms in my building is no longer the norm. Seeing departmental office with faculty sitting at their desks or standing at the printer is a thing of the past. Too many times the hallways, the classrooms, and sidewalks seem like a scene from a movie where survivors have returned after some apocalyptic event. It has been sad to experience that change, not only for my colleagues, but also for current students. All of these changes make it easier to believe it is time to move to the next chapter, the new path, of an unparalleled, a certainly unexpected, time in the academy. It has been a world of learning, not just for my students, but for me. I perhaps learned much more than I could ever teach or offer. This past week someone asked if I had any idea how many students I have had in my classes? That would take some calculating. But let me try to offer some possible (with some degree of accuracy) number. Because writing classes do not have the high course caps of other classes, my numbers are low compared to my gen ed, lecture-leading colleagues. I think, running some estimates, I have probably had between 9,000-10,000 students over three decades, and while that number is not enormous, managing writing is a very different task, and one that is enormously labor intensive, and can be incredibly satisfying. Writing requires critical thought and analysis; it is an art ( not unlike Aristotle’s argument about rhetoric, in spite of his disdain for writing) that instills process. It is the thing that most often instantiates possibility or orchestrates happenstance, changing it into reality for me.
All of that is of significance, but the impetus for this post is to offer a profound thank you to individuals too numerous to count for their important contributions to my teaching career. if I go all the way back to Suomi, one of my first students would eventually go to Dana, my Alma Mater, and then to Luther Seminary. He did more to help me realize both my strengths and weaknesses than he will ever know. Another, who was an RA would eventually go to receive a Master’s and work with me years later at MTU. There were numerous others who taught me more significant lessons that would serve me well, some times things that I needed to do much differently. When I would return to work on a second Master’s and PhD, both grad school colleagues and students would help me begin to understand what becoming a professor would mean. That is not as simple as one might believe. Managing course material barely scratches the surface. During that period, I lost a sister, a father, a marriage, and almost my schooling at one point. Ironically, my work outside the university as a server did as much to keep a balance as all my work at the university did. Emergency surgery and a class of international engineers that semester revealed the important give and take from instructor to student as much as any class ever would. To this day I am in touch with two from that class. One of them, who lives in Spain, will always have significance in my life.
When I arrived in Wisconsin, the first year there had me wondering if I had made the right decision to become a scholar, an academic. At the end of a brutal first semester, students wrote evaluations that were stunningly brutal and hurtful, and they minced no words. Fortunately, there was a single student, also a single mother, who trusted I had her best interests at heart. Now 20 years later, she is still in my life as a now married mother of three. She did more to support this struggling academic wannabe than words will ever express. I love her to this day for that support. Then there was a student, who hid away in the back of a freshman composition course, having transferred from one of the flagship institutions of the Wisconsin system, she was a brilliant writer, better than 95% of my other students. In fact, I told her she would have to push herself and I would do so on her papers, but that she might find the class a bit mundane. Today, she is one of the closest things to a daughter I would ever hope to have. While I could give a lengthy list of important students, one has little idea of how he affected me emotionally, when he gave me a thank you note my last semester at Stout, comparing to Dr. Larch in Irving’s book, Cider House Rules. I cried when I read that note. Another person, one whose father had taught at Stout, returned to get his degree while serving in the military. He would help me move to Bloomsburg and would care for Lydia after I left. In fact, he, his family, and I tag-teamed her, and he was with her when she passed away. Another student, who will always have an important place in my heart, stayed in my little house when I first moved. The significance she held in my life had been unspoken, but there are no words to adequately express her importance. She is probably one of the most talented and beautiful people I have ever been blessed to know.
Then there is Bloomsburg (now Commonwealth). It is the place I learned to really become a professor. Again, fortunately, two classes that first semester set the stage for what would come. As much as the first semester at Stout would bury me, the first semester (and year) at Bloomsburg would ground me on a successful trajectory. My Bible as Literature class and my first small class of Writing in the Professions had students I am still in touch with as I retire. One student would show up in class my second semester, she earned the minor, was an honors students, and by the time she finished her degree, 1/4 of her undergrad was in my classes. She and a second student, also in another class that semester as well as both worked in the writing center, are both married, have two children, and both remain important in my life. They were members of the first group of students who paralleled my first four years, During the decade and a half here, I could focus on the various students who have lived with me during summers, during academic years, from the states and overseas. Each of those students changed my life. They were there as I struggled with my health, as I remodeled and renovated the Acre. They know who they are, and each individual helped me understand so much more about myself. The first filled in the pot holes for those who would follow. She pushed me to learn about myself in ways beyond anything I could imagine, and I spoke with her this week. The last just received her Master’s, and ironically, they have both humbled me by asking that I officiate their weddings. Two others, one who was a foreign exchange student and another who came to me in tears the first day of class, and who have the same first name, continue to bless me with their presence in my life. Some are mother’s now and her father blessed me by saying I was as much a father as he was. Quite a change from the first time I met him. Another brilliant, but quiet, student got up early to drive to class, taking a nap before class. She would not finish and is now a mother of three and a half (yes, another on the way). She is one of the most amazingly good people I have ever met. Now the entire family is a blessing.
Certainly, it is dangerous to list anyone for fear of missing or offending another, but that is not the intent. What I am noting are a few in the confines of this small space. As importantly, in the 9,000+, each one is part of the amazing tapestry that has been a wonderfully complex, but simultaneously rewarding three decades. I have been blessed beyond words. A student once asked me if I ever disliked a student. In three decades, only one. Perhaps on the most profoundly capable and talented students I ever taught, but not a good person. It was for that reason I did not like them. One in 30+ years means I am fortunate beyond works. And indeed, for that and so many other reasons, I give thanks. The calling of the academy was not something I heard early, and in many ways it had been as important a calling as my time as a pastor. It is for that reason I share this piece I have used before. It was sung at my ordination, and I believe it would be appropriate at my funeral.
Thank you for reading,
Dr. Martin