Introduction to the Interview
Dr. Sanford Tweedie
"B.A. University of Michigan
M.A. Eastern Michigan University
Ph.D. University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Tweedie teaches in the first-year writing program, undergraduate major, and M.A. in Writing. He has taught at the University of Erfurt in Germany as a Fulbright Scholar and received Rowan's Lindback Distinguished Teaching Award. His research interests include students in transition, classroom-based research, genre-stretching writing, and pedagogy that matters.
His writing has appeared in College Composition and Communication, English Journal, Exquisite Corpse, and Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, among others."
-Writing Arts Faculty Page, Rowan University Website
I was in Professor Tweedie's Intro to WA module last semester and I am currently enrolled in his Writer's Mind class. Because I know him and I am familiar with one-on-one conferences in his office, I felt comfortable asking him for a few minutes of his time. After establishing a date and time, I met with him in his office which was of a state that I like to refer to as an "organized mess". My room is the same way; everyone else sees clutter, but I have everything I need and I know where to find it among to mess. I'm sure he feels the same way about his office. After a pause to start up my laptop and locate a vacant outlet to plug it into, we began our interview.
I immediately realized that I could never be a court stenographer. While I was able to type almost everything that was said, it was hard to keep up with what Professor Tweedie was saying. He was incredibly insightful, informative, and passionate about his career as a writing professor. He had a lot to say and in turn I had a lot to type.
The Interview
LB: Did you always want to be a teacher or did you try your hand at a different career first?
ST: Oh my how long can I make this story? Ok I’ll do the short version. When I graduated from college I entered a poetry master’s program. But I didn’t like it and quit. Then I thought “now what? Ok I’ll try school…” This is first time thought about being a teacher. My mother was a high school English teacher so I had had no desire to be one as well. I went back to Michigan to get a certification in teaching. I was taking masters courses and applied to teach freshmen comp at same time I was student teaching for the 8th grade. I blame it on my supervising teacher. I didn’t have the patience for these kids but nothing bothered my advisor. So I started teaching college and have been doing that ever since.
LB: What degrees do you hold as a writing professor?
ST: Bachelors in English lit form u Michigan masters in language and PhD from university of Wisconsin English in communication and rhetoric.
LB: What did the process of becoming a writing teacher involve?
ST: I think they do a better job now. Was taking a method course for high school English some “how to write” in that. As a TA, there was a practicum about teaching writing another course on writing theory=introduction. Learning is teaching. I don’t remember an orientation.
Glib answer to previous question: I didn’t learn to teach writing until I could take apart other peoples writing so yeah in order to teach writing I had to understand structure organization how people move from idea to idea and discuss that.
LB: Do you do/have time for writing on the side?
ST: [Chuckles] Well as a professor you have to write it’s a requirement of tenure of service of everything you do. Your question is do I write things I wanna write, right? We had to write a letter when they redid the tenure. I’m writing constantly [chuckles] trying to work on my own stuff, on academic stuff, on my career stuff, but not as much on my own as I’d like. I’m looking around my office and there’s nothing but words. All these piles are piles of words. Shadows of a Fallen Wall took 11 years to write. It’s very easy in academia to get distracted because there’s a lot of other things going on that require immediate attention. What hurts people in tenure is that there is so much to do and scholarship gets pushed to the side.
LB: What is your favorite part of being a writing professor?
ST: [pondering] Can I answer that a couple different ways? I enjoy working with text and because I’m working with students we can see those texts change and alter and become stronger and students as developing writers gain awareness of what they’re doing.
The term professor encompasses teaching, scholarship, service, opportunity to guide college curriculum development assessment, so much more than just teaching so uh you know this was 1994 a dept of communications and we were the college writing program. And I've had the opportunity to watch it grow and be a part of it. We have 4 majors as undergrad and a masters. It's feeling part of something bigger not just teaching. That’s what I see as one of my roles in this. I think sometimes my colleagues loose sight of the student.
LB: What is your biggest struggle as a writing professor?
ST: [laughs] that’s a good question Lacey [pondering] the biggest struggle is also the biggest reward. The student writing, I mentioned before how much I enjoyed that. I enjoy working with text but the paper load is tremendous and staying on top is difficult. But I refuse ask students to do less to lighten that load. I’m a believer that you learn through the writing.
Finding time to clean my desk is another struggle.
LB: My desk is a mess, don’t feel bad. Have you ever taught at a level below or above undergrad? If so, what was it?
ST: Yes, I taught 8th grade and BOF students (summer programs before college) I taught master students for a dozen years now. I’ve taught German student undergrads. I like undergrad, I think it’s an important transitional state. That’s why I like to teach intro classes.
LB: Have you ever taught a class not geared toward writing arts majors? If so, what was it and how did you approach writing for people without the proclivity for it?
ST: Well I teach in the same way that I do in a course like the Writer’s Mind. I mean I’ve taught first year German students culture writing. They don’t teach writing at a college level there. I’ve taught a class kind of like a sociology current events course. In every course you have to build a sense of trust between you and students and students with one another and challenge them in a way they don’t want to be challenged. There’s resistance.
LB: What qualities do you think writing teachers need to have?
ST: [laughs] The same qualities all good teachers need to have. They need to care, be open, and be receptive. They have to understand where students are coming from to see they know their material. They must also be willing to say “I don’t know.” They have to believe in the students and that they can get better. They must help guide them from where they are to where they want to be and make the classroom interesting. And you gotta ultimately, especially at the college level, gotta wanna learn. I mean you have to continually rethink the course, what you’re doing, what the students are doing, and learn from what they have to say. Yeah you gotta be fair, gotta offer good assignments, gotta offer lots of feedback.
LB: Do you have any additional advice?
ST: Yes I’m not sure what you’re gonna do with this but here’s been my strategy: I never suggest to a student that they get a PhD in anything. If the student is interested in that, I’ll be glad to guide them in that or send them to someone who can help. But graduate school is something you spend years getting a degree for and you’ll probably teach for that university for low pay with no benefits. It destroys relationships in part that it takes up so much time and part that if you wanna go to a program you probably have to move and to get a job you probably have to move again. You don’t usually get to choose were you wanna go. The likelihood of a local job isn’t strong.
Grad school is something you must really want to do. You can’t go into in half-heartedly. This is a very broad statistic but just want to give you an idea: 60% of undergrads get a degree. Of those who start getting their PhD, half will complete course requirements and half of that will complete dissertation. They’ve written papers as undergrads but papers start to get book length and are supposed to show you belong in the field. People don’t finish. If they don’t finish, not all of them get jobs. And if they do, not all get tenure. I hear people all the time say, “Oh, I wanna be a professor, you guys have it so good,” and I say, “Go ahead, have fun.”
One of my professors said, “You do so much work to get tenure and then you have to do more work.” There are so many hurdles. You really gotta wanna do it or else it’s really gonna make you miserable.
ST: Oh my how long can I make this story? Ok I’ll do the short version. When I graduated from college I entered a poetry master’s program. But I didn’t like it and quit. Then I thought “now what? Ok I’ll try school…” This is first time thought about being a teacher. My mother was a high school English teacher so I had had no desire to be one as well. I went back to Michigan to get a certification in teaching. I was taking masters courses and applied to teach freshmen comp at same time I was student teaching for the 8th grade. I blame it on my supervising teacher. I didn’t have the patience for these kids but nothing bothered my advisor. So I started teaching college and have been doing that ever since.
LB: What degrees do you hold as a writing professor?
ST: Bachelors in English lit form u Michigan masters in language and PhD from university of Wisconsin English in communication and rhetoric.
LB: What did the process of becoming a writing teacher involve?
ST: I think they do a better job now. Was taking a method course for high school English some “how to write” in that. As a TA, there was a practicum about teaching writing another course on writing theory=introduction. Learning is teaching. I don’t remember an orientation.
Glib answer to previous question: I didn’t learn to teach writing until I could take apart other peoples writing so yeah in order to teach writing I had to understand structure organization how people move from idea to idea and discuss that.
LB: Do you do/have time for writing on the side?
ST: [Chuckles] Well as a professor you have to write it’s a requirement of tenure of service of everything you do. Your question is do I write things I wanna write, right? We had to write a letter when they redid the tenure. I’m writing constantly [chuckles] trying to work on my own stuff, on academic stuff, on my career stuff, but not as much on my own as I’d like. I’m looking around my office and there’s nothing but words. All these piles are piles of words. Shadows of a Fallen Wall took 11 years to write. It’s very easy in academia to get distracted because there’s a lot of other things going on that require immediate attention. What hurts people in tenure is that there is so much to do and scholarship gets pushed to the side.
LB: What is your favorite part of being a writing professor?
ST: [pondering] Can I answer that a couple different ways? I enjoy working with text and because I’m working with students we can see those texts change and alter and become stronger and students as developing writers gain awareness of what they’re doing.
The term professor encompasses teaching, scholarship, service, opportunity to guide college curriculum development assessment, so much more than just teaching so uh you know this was 1994 a dept of communications and we were the college writing program. And I've had the opportunity to watch it grow and be a part of it. We have 4 majors as undergrad and a masters. It's feeling part of something bigger not just teaching. That’s what I see as one of my roles in this. I think sometimes my colleagues loose sight of the student.
LB: What is your biggest struggle as a writing professor?
ST: [laughs] that’s a good question Lacey [pondering] the biggest struggle is also the biggest reward. The student writing, I mentioned before how much I enjoyed that. I enjoy working with text but the paper load is tremendous and staying on top is difficult. But I refuse ask students to do less to lighten that load. I’m a believer that you learn through the writing.
Finding time to clean my desk is another struggle.
LB: My desk is a mess, don’t feel bad. Have you ever taught at a level below or above undergrad? If so, what was it?
ST: Yes, I taught 8th grade and BOF students (summer programs before college) I taught master students for a dozen years now. I’ve taught German student undergrads. I like undergrad, I think it’s an important transitional state. That’s why I like to teach intro classes.
LB: Have you ever taught a class not geared toward writing arts majors? If so, what was it and how did you approach writing for people without the proclivity for it?
ST: Well I teach in the same way that I do in a course like the Writer’s Mind. I mean I’ve taught first year German students culture writing. They don’t teach writing at a college level there. I’ve taught a class kind of like a sociology current events course. In every course you have to build a sense of trust between you and students and students with one another and challenge them in a way they don’t want to be challenged. There’s resistance.
LB: What qualities do you think writing teachers need to have?
ST: [laughs] The same qualities all good teachers need to have. They need to care, be open, and be receptive. They have to understand where students are coming from to see they know their material. They must also be willing to say “I don’t know.” They have to believe in the students and that they can get better. They must help guide them from where they are to where they want to be and make the classroom interesting. And you gotta ultimately, especially at the college level, gotta wanna learn. I mean you have to continually rethink the course, what you’re doing, what the students are doing, and learn from what they have to say. Yeah you gotta be fair, gotta offer good assignments, gotta offer lots of feedback.
LB: Do you have any additional advice?
ST: Yes I’m not sure what you’re gonna do with this but here’s been my strategy: I never suggest to a student that they get a PhD in anything. If the student is interested in that, I’ll be glad to guide them in that or send them to someone who can help. But graduate school is something you spend years getting a degree for and you’ll probably teach for that university for low pay with no benefits. It destroys relationships in part that it takes up so much time and part that if you wanna go to a program you probably have to move and to get a job you probably have to move again. You don’t usually get to choose were you wanna go. The likelihood of a local job isn’t strong.
Grad school is something you must really want to do. You can’t go into in half-heartedly. This is a very broad statistic but just want to give you an idea: 60% of undergrads get a degree. Of those who start getting their PhD, half will complete course requirements and half of that will complete dissertation. They’ve written papers as undergrads but papers start to get book length and are supposed to show you belong in the field. People don’t finish. If they don’t finish, not all of them get jobs. And if they do, not all get tenure. I hear people all the time say, “Oh, I wanna be a professor, you guys have it so good,” and I say, “Go ahead, have fun.”
One of my professors said, “You do so much work to get tenure and then you have to do more work.” There are so many hurdles. You really gotta wanna do it or else it’s really gonna make you miserable.