New and visiting profs reflect on first year at Luther

The first year teaching as a professor has its fair share of challenges. Teaching in a new place with new people requires patience and flexibility. Here, a few professors share their insights on the biggest challenges and greatest rewards they’ve experienced with their first year teaching at Luther.

This year brought a sizeable change for music professor Richard Tirk because he was able to focus on one area of the department. He spent the last three years teaching several different areas of music, so adjusting to just teaching trumpet was a great experience for him.

“This year has been about trying to refine, encourage and push the already high level of trumpet playing,” Tirk said.

Tirk has been surprised by the amount of dedication his students have to the trumpet, even if they are not music majors. The majority of his students come in to class prepared regardless of the amount of work they had to endure that week.

“The students here have a lot on their plate and they mostly rise to the occasion,” Tirk said.

Todd Green, a visiting professor of religion, is teaching in the Upper Midwest for the first time. His biggest challenge was adjusting to the attitude of his students at Luther.

“I think the most interesting surprise is becoming accustomed to what is called ‘Minnesota nice’—which apparently extends to Northern Iowa,” Green said.

He feels Luther students are very nice and extraordinarily polite. However, he noticed there is hesitancy at Luther for students to engage in passionate exchanges on controversial or provocative topics. He tried to initiate a conversation on Christian views of sexuality in his course last fall in which he was met by silence.

“I have learned I have to be a little more creative and a little less direct in how I approach such topics to navigate the culture of politeness and niceness,” Green said.

Green feels an upside to this culture is that students rarely come to him to complain about grades, unlike at an institution where he previously taught.

“When Luther students talk to me about grades it is more often than not in the context of wanting to know how they can improve,” Green said.

The first-year professors at Luther plan to take their surprises and challenges and implement them into their plans for next year. Rebecca Bowman, visiting professor of political science, was also surprised by how genuinely kind people are at Luther. She feels the timing on a few of her classes was off and pacing her students’ work could be improved.

Green feels his students and faculty colleagues are what help him to become a better teacher. Overall, he is glad he made the move to Decorah.

“I am amazed at how much freedom the administration gives professors to be creative and innovative in the classroom,” Green said.