Bored? No. Inspired? Yes.

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In the first blog of the semester, Nancy Trautmann, professor of English, comments on an article Jill Biden wrote for Forbes magazine regarding teaching at a community college:

Community college students are inspiring.  Jill Biden made that comment in Forbes on 8/5/09 based on her 16 years of working in community colleges.   Indeed, community college students are inspiring.  In the almost 30 years since I first came to Northampton, I have seen students overcome odds, fulfill dreams, finish college and gain academic honors when they never thought they could finish high school, deal with crippling physical, financial and personal problems and still get up every day and go to class.  In the past 30 years I have seen the community college be gateway to success for Vietnamese boat people, refugees from the Shah of Iran, displaced steelworkers, displaced homemakers, and bright high school students who could never have scraped together the money for all four years at a private university.  They work and they struggle and somehow they succeed.  Community college students are inspiring.  They are also enthusiastic, blasé, overworked, frustrated, frustrating, sometimes underprepared, sometimes brilliant and always surprising.  When I first started at Northampton, fresh out of grad school and with experience teaching freshmen at a four-year private university, many people said “you must see a huge difference in the students.”  I know what they expected.  They expected me to say that I had never seen students so unprepared, but that wasn’t true.  I have seen unprepared students at both places and brilliant and gifted students at both places.  Though not given to broad generalizations I could say that one difference I saw was that the students I encountered at Northampton were more grateful – for the opportunity, for the help.  In the years at Northampton, thanks to the students, I have never been bored, and I’ve sometimes been thanked and have often been inspired, and that makes a world of difference.

About the Author:  Like Jill Biden, Professor of English Nancy Trautmann is a lifelong educator.  She has taught both at Northampton and at a research university.  Students have had the benefit of her expertise and enthusiasm in a variety of courses, including Basic English, English I, British Literature I, and Shakespeare.  When asked whether she prefers chocolate or vanilla, her response is strawberry.