Reilly's Ramblings

What is it like to be a new professor at a liberal arts college and brand new to a part of the country you never been before? That question is precisely what Dr. Barbara Prince is facing currently.

Dr. Barbara Prince is a new professor at Morningside College. She works for the Department of Social Sciences. This semester, she’s teaching two classes: sociology of gender beyond pink and blue and elementary probability in statistics.

She started at Morningside in August of 2018, which makes her a freshman among the other professors and of the college. For new professors, they go to a new faculty seminar, which meets once a month.

“All of the first, second, and third-year faculty and we talk about a book, so it’s kind of like a first-year orientation for faculty.”

She talks about how in the seminar they talk about Morningside, all of the acronyms, what’s going on and happening on campus. She’s also learning from the other professors too as the semester progresses.

Dr. Prince is not from Iowa nor the Midwest part of the United States. She was born Seaford, New York. It’s on Long Island and 40 minutes outside of New York City.

She has one sister named Katherine and two cats named Zelda and Luna. She lived in Seaford her whole life until she went to college.

Some people may not know this, but she’s shy and is an introvert which may surprise many because she is a professor and has to stand up in front of people and talk to them. Her love and passion for teaching overpower her shyness.

She was also a professional Irish step dancer, starting at the age eight and ended her career when she was in college. Her career lasted for 15 years, and it ended when she ruptured her Achilles tendon. She also played basketball as well.

Dr. Prince was an undergraduate at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania, which is similar to Morningside College. Elizabethtown currently has 1700 students, is a liberal arts college, work closely with the professors.

She said her experience being at Elizabethtown made her think “that this is what I want to do (teach).”

She went for her master’s degree at West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia. She received a master’s degree in sociology and a certificate in university teaching.

At West Virginia University is where she started to get the “how-to” in teaching. She then went for a Ph.D. degree at the Bowling Green State University in Ohio.

Her love for sociology started when she took a sociology class for college credit as a senior in high school. She describes the difficulty of the class and how it changed her way of thinking.

“I thought that it was super, super, super difficult. I would spend HOURS, every night working on it.”

This class help Dr. Prince realize that this is the subject that she wants to teach one day. It also challenged and shifted her thinking.

She moved away from sociology when she went to college. Initially went to college to be a music major, because she was in the marching band and a drum major. But, she freaked out and didn’t want to the auditions.

She then changed her major to history. The reason is that she likes history. But when she was signing up for her second-semester classes, the only ones available were the sociology classes.

She then became a double major in sociology and history. As she was taking the sociology classes, she realized that she’s hooked and that this is it.

She made her history major into her minor and dedicated her time to the sociology major.

“It is like putting on a new pair of glasses.”

Being here at Morningside, it brings back memories of her time at Elizabethtown College. She likes the environment of how the students want to learn, are engaging in their classes, wanting to meet with her, and how involved they are in sports and events happening on campus.

“I really love it.”

She said that her start at Morningside has been pretty good so far. She’s learning all of the traditions that Morningside College brings.

She said that it has been very challenging “trying to learn the culture here.”

She’s enjoys teaching and has been wanting to do this since she was an undergraduate in college.

“It’s been really exciting to finally get to be a real professor. It is stressful right now, but I’m really enjoying it and having a good time.”

It is not just adjusting to Morningside but also adjusting and getting used to being in the Midwest. She said that it is completely different from the East Coast.

“People are nicer here. They say hello. They greet you. Everyone walks around with their heads up, making eye contact. In the city, it doesn’t happen.”

For her, this is the exact job and exact place she wanted to work at in her career. That made it easy for her to decide to take the job at Morningside College.

It was complicated for her to take the job at Morningside. For her interview, she was only in Sioux City for 24 hours and loved it.

Dr. Prince closest relatives are eight hours away from Sioux City and had no one that she knows in Sioux City, which made it complicated for her.

What helps her out is that Morningside is a welcoming community. It brings a home environment and the faculty help each other out, especially towards new members.

“People are inviting me over to their houses for dinner. I moved in and had to leave my apartment for two weeks and needed someone to watch my two cats.”

One of the faculty members watched her cats, and she didn’t know Dr. Prince at all. Her and Dr. Valerie Hennings go out for lunch and get coffee together.

“They want you to feel like you belong. They want you to feel welcome. They see themselves as a Morningside family. That trickles down to the students and trickles up from the students.”

It is still hard for Dr. Prince to get used to people saying hello. She thinks that people are talking to someone else but in reality, they are saying hello to her.

She does miss her East Coast home a lot. She misses the people and the culture.

“I miss my friends and family. I have only been here for a few months. It’s going to take some time.”

She doesn’t know how long it is going to take for her to adjust to being here. She heard that the first year is a whirlwind and just survive it.

After that first year, it will be easier for Dr. Prince. She loves her job and her career at Morningside and wouldn’t change it for anything. All she has to do is get through the upcoming semester.

What is it like to be a new professor at a liberal arts college and brand new to a part of the country you never been before? That question is precisely what Dr. Barbara Prince is facing currently.

Dr. Barbara Prince is a new professor at Morningside College. She works for the Department of Social Sciences. This semester, she’s teaching two classes: sociology of gender beyond pink and blue and elementary probability in statistics.

She started at Morningside in August of 2018, which makes her a freshman among the other professors and of the college. For new professors, they go to a new faculty seminar, which meets once a month.

“All of the first, second, and third-year faculty and we talk about a book, so it’s kind of like a first-year orientation for faculty.”

She talks about how in the seminar they talk about Morningside, all of the acronyms, what’s going on and happening on campus. She’s also learning from the other professors too as the semester progresses.

Dr. Prince is not from Iowa nor the Midwest part of the United States. She was born Seaford, New York. It’s on Long Island and 40 minutes outside of New York City.

She has one sister named Katherine and two cats named. She lived in Seaford her whole life until she went to college.

Some people may not know this, but she’s shy and is an introvert which may surprise many because she is a professor and has to stand up in front of people and talk to them. Her love and passion for teaching overpower her shyness.

She was also a professional Irish step dancer, starting at the age eight and ended her career when she was in college. She also played basketball as well.

Dr. Prince was an undergraduate at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania, which is similar to Morningside College. Elizabethtown currently has 1700 students, is a liberal arts college, work closely with the professors.

She said her experience being at Elizabethtown made her think “that this is what I want to do (teach).”

She went for her master’s degree at West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia. She received a master’s degree in sociology and a certificate in university teaching.

At West Virginia University is where she started to get the “how-to” in teaching. She then went for a Ph.D. degree at the Bowling Green State University in Ohio.

Being here at Morningside brings back memories of her time at Elizabethtown College. She likes the environment of how the students want to learn, are engaging in class, wanting to meet with her, and how involved they are in sports and events happening on campus.

“I really love it.”

She said that her start at Morningside has been pretty good so far. She’s learning all of the traditions that Morningside College brings.

She said that it has been very challenging “trying to learn the culture here.”

She’s enjoys teaching and has been wanting to do this since she was an undergraduate in college.

“It’s been really exciting to finally get to be a real professor. It is stressful right now, but I’m really enjoying it and having a good time.”

Paper Lion is about a writer trying to see what it is like to a professional football last-string quarterback and write about it in a book. George Plimpton, the main character, has a hard time trying to find a team that is willing to have him go to pre-season practices. The first two teams that Plimpton contacts are the New York Giants and the Baltimore Colts. The Detroit Lions are the third team that he calls, and they said yes. He heads down to their pre-season headquarters in Cranbrook school, a boys’ private school in Michigan.

He talks about his experience in the pre-season camp and practices. He discusses the environment and treatment of veterans to rookies. He’s describing in many details what it is like to be a rookie quarterback in the “big times.” He gets to know and bonds with the players and coaches on the team. He talks about playing his only football game and losing 30 yards. After that game, he tries very hard to play in another football game, but the NFL commissioner said no. He leaves the Lions training camp and a season later; he works at the NFL Draft as a representative for the Detroit Lions.

The author of this book is George Plimpton. The book was published in 1966. He was the first editor-in-chief of The Paris Review. In his sports journalism career, he pioneered the participatory journalism, where he competes in professional sports games and writes about it for people to read. He has written the book Out of My League in 1960. Out of My League was put together in the same way as this book and was the influence of this book. For Paper Lion, he thought that he could repeat the same experiment that completed when he tried out baseball as a part of the New York Yankees. His determination to try participatory journalism again but in the world of the NFL and the Detroit Lions.

The author’s purpose for writing this book to see if his experiment in participating in the professional world of football as an amateur would work, and it did. After the success of his first participatory journalism experiment, he took a few years off to plan his next test which turned out to be the book, Paper Lion. He wanted to see what it is like for an average person or amateur to be a part of an NFL team and play professional football. It turned out that it was improbable for an average person to become a professional football player in the NFL. He wanted people to know what the players on the Detroit Lions team are like on and off the football field. He accomplished his goals of the experiment with football and for writing the book to explain in details what it is like to be the “odd” person out in an NFL team.

Plimpton’s idea for the book was to call up NFL teams and see if they wanted him and if it was alright to write about his experience with the team. It took two different NFL teams until the third team, the Detroit Lions, said yes to having him on their football team during their pre-season training camps. The Lions said yes for Plimpton to write all about his experience. Once he arrived at the Detroit Lions’ pre-season training camps, the team made it clear to Plimpton that he should try to fit in with the players, so that they won’t get nervous with having a writer being around them.

His methods for writing this book were interviewing, observation, research, and participation. Plimpton interviewed but also talked to the players in conversation to have a sense of who they are and what they are like as a football player and as a person. He observed by watching the football players on the football field, practicing over and over again. Plimpton researched the team by asking the coaches and players what happened last season for the Lions and reading the sports section of the newspaper to have a feeling of what the team is like during the season. He read the papers before he went to the training camps.

He participated heavily on the football field during practices and hanging out the players after the practice sessions were over for the day. The participation of being on the team as a quarterback and as a member of the Detroit Lions is the most important to accomplish what he wanted to do. He couldn’t write this book that way that it was without being there in person and talking to the members of the Lions. Another part that helped the participation part of Plimpton’s methods is interviewing. Participating and talking to the players go hand-in-hand throughout the entire book.

George Plimpton’s perspective when writing the book is the opinion and subjective observations. There are parts of the book where he tries to be objective but realizes that he can’t because he is soaked up in the life of an NFL football player. His position in the book is trying his best to have the players be comfortable with him talking to them and being around them. He is emotionally involved in the story because he is the main character. In the process of being apart of the Lions’ training camp, he becomes obsessed with the game of football, and after he leaves the training camp, he also becomes obsessed with the team by wanting to help them out in any way. He learns that there is a brotherhood in football and even after leaving the sport, there is still that brotherhood that is inseparable.

I liked reading this book. To read a book from the perspective of someone who is trying not only a new sport but at the professional level is fascinating. George Plimpton brings the readers along with him on his journey to playing an NFL football, along with the ups and downs. He also helps the readers learn more about the players on the Detroit Lions and their coaches. This “inside scoop” is something that probably didn’t happen very often in the periods of the 1950s and 1960s.

Having someone who is willing to put their life on the line to tell a story is crazy, insane, brave, and adventurous all at the same time. Plimpton, in my opinion, brought participatory journalism into the spotlight with this book. He is a writer that is not afraid of what’s happening next. He’s a writer that is going to go along the adventure and see what happens.