Common Hour #2: Meet the New Professors

I love my Fridays, especially since I have the afternoons free. This allowed me to attend my second Common Hour of the year. It was a neat one because our new professors had the stage.

This year, Coe has six new, full-time professors across a wide variety of subjects. Terry McNabb, who is in charge of Common Hours, decided it would be nice for them to have a chance to introduce themselves to an audience and talk about why they ended up at Coe.

For my own major, we did get a new English professor, Amber Shaw (American Studies) and a new poetry professor (Nick Twemlow, more on him later!). In the rhetoric department, Terri Donofrio joined the team (although I probably won't have her since I'm close to finishing up my minor); the nursing department welcomed Joan Cooper; the economic department brought back Coe grad Ryan Baranowski; and the biology department welcomed Dave Lo to their faculty.

The audience was mainly composed of faculty and staff but there were a handful of students like myself. It was interesting to hear about how each person had ended up at Coe. Some were grads and the move back was like coming home while others had never even heard of Coe until the open position was brought to their attention.

What was neat to see was that in the six new professors was their passion for their topic. They each talked about their current projects and while I didn't understand everything (that darn science!), it was amazing to see that each of them truly loved what they were doing. Regardless if I end up taking a class from any of them, I know that they are great additions to our faculty. They are all beginning to understand what Coe is all about and I know they will be mentors to many, many students as they continue their time here.