I am excited to come in every day because I love my students. I love teaching. I love the transformation that happens to students over their time here—working with first-year students all the way to seniors, watching them grow and change.
I remember I had a colleague teaching [at Suffolk] and she loved it. She said to me that students here genuinely got something out of the time you put in to being a good teacher. That was compelling to me because I wanted to be at a place that took teaching seriously and took students and their experiences seriously.
Several years ago, I had a student in one of my first-year classes. When I got his first piece of writing back, I recognized that it needed some help. He was extremely eager to make his writing better, and we worked together over the course of the semester. I had him again in several other classes and I could watch his writing improve and improve. We have stayed in touch over the years and I just got an email from him that he got into Columbia University to get a master’s in international relations. He said that the efforts that my colleagues and I made during his first semester at Suffolk were what lit the fire in him. It is profoundly satisfying to know that you’ve changed a life and helped people reach their dreams.