Profile: A Professor With A Meaningful Impact

It is sometimes the case that students, who attend a four-year university,  choose a major they are not exactly excited about. Maybe they have no idea what career path interests them. Or, maybe they feel like it’s the easiest route to graduation.

I chose to major in communication, with an emphasis in advertising. Not because I was particularly passionate about campaigns and promotional strategies, I just wanted to avoid any kind of math or science at all costs. While I had never been excited by writing, I knew that it was something that had always come easy to me.

It wasn’t until my junior year that I had a class that significantly changed my outlook on writing. This class wasn’t easy, but that was the fun part. This professor challenged the stereotype of dull, effortless and all-too-common monotonous communication classes. For the first time, I was excited to start a career in communications.

One of the assignments in this class was to write a short, but colorful, profile on our professor. Below is my profile:

Every morning, she walks into the classroom and sips from a mug that reads, “I am silently correcting your grammar” before addressing the students who are seated for another day of class.

Rowena Kelsey* is a professor at Washington State University. After 12 years at the College of Veterinary Medicine, she took a significant turn from a career in science to embrace a career in writing and journalism. Rowena earned a bachelor’s degree from the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication, and went on to teach students who, just like herself, have a passion for writing.

“I never saw it as a career path I wanted to take,” she said. “I didn’t want to get pigeon-holed in a traditionally female occupation.”

Whenever Rowena spoke, students gave her their attention. Her voice was soft, but the students focused on every bit of information or funny anecdote she offered.

Decorating the walls of Rowena’s office are things you might expect of a professor: books, calendars and planners. A weathered, wooden desk stands in a corner. Rowena smiles and laughs when she recalls the man whom the desk belongs to, James O. Wentz*. The professor who she says taught her more than anyone else during her time as a student in the Murrow College.

If your writing was crap, he would tell you, she said. He had a no holds barred style of teaching that reflected his dedication and high expectations of his students, she said.

Rowena recalls what it was like for her and her classmates when she was a student in the Murrow College.

“Having sat in a classroom with people with very high standards, we were very dedicated,” she said. “Everybody wanted to be a Murrow grad.”

35 years later, Rowena still holds her students to the same high standards she was given by her professors. Dictionaries, style guides and reference books are scattered throughout Rowena’s classroom. She encourages her students to improve their writing by relying on these resources, rather than technology, which she says, is unreliable.

Students looking for a career in writing must be disciplined in the practice and depend on themselves to be successful, she said.

Nancy K. Mick*, an academic coordinator for the Murrow College, has worked with Rowena for 12 years. She says Rowena has learned from the best professors and has held her students to that standard. She hopes that after Rowena’s retirement, the college will continue upholding students to the standards that Rowena does.

“The longevity, the history and the knowledge would be gone,” she said. “She trains students to be worthy of the Murrow degree.”

*Names have been changed.