By Carol Wu
A singer. A designer. An author.
It often slips our minds of the fact that, outside of class, professors lead creative and thrilling lives. Take, for example, Professor Nancy Michael. She is an alto singer for two choirs, though she is a former soprano; a costume designer for musicals like White Christmas, Children of Eden, and The Secret Garden; and a contributing author for the soon-to-be published book Practical Approaches to Teaching Beowulf.
Yet, life does have a way of making detours. For Professor Michael, it involves the rewarding, but patience-straining responsibility as a mother and doctorate candidate.
Currently, Professor Michael is working towards a PhD in English at Catholic University, where she’s teaching Intensive English in addition to her Cultural Foundations classes at NYU Washington, DC.
Michael never expected to pursue a path in education. As a child, Michael’s dream was to become a coroner. Later, in high school, she wanted to become a marine biologist, entering Boston University’s marine biology program. Along the way, her musical endeavors in vocals, as well as piano and wind instruments, made her a choral director hopeful. It was at Villanova University, where Michael completed her Masters in Theater, that she considered the possibility of becoming a professor. During an academic showcase, Michael presented on her research paper, and the faculty praised her for the potential she has as a professor. Her love for school and esteem for quality education only strengthened the decision for her to teach.
Michael has made her way along the east coast from her childhood home in the outskirts of Philadelphia to Boston for undergraduate, Pennsylvania for Villanova, and DC for Catholic University. At present, Michael lives in Fredericksburg, Virginia with her husband Jason and her five-year-old son John Adams, whose talkative and stubborn behavior is not so different from President John Adams. In six months, Professor Michael will defend her dissertation, and she is excited for the leisure time she’ll have, when she can spend more time reading fantasy novels like Stephen King’s.
And to her Cultural Foundations class, Professor Michael says, “If you don’t ask questions about [something], [then] you can’t figure out what you really believe about [in it]… All we can do is scratch the tip of the iceberg. Everything we do, there’s so much more going on underneath of that, in a 75-minute class, that you don’t get time to do.”
“So question everything.”
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