Advertisement While some might think higher education instructors sit idle in summer months, many — like Harper — find work to supplement their income, prepare for the upcoming school year and brush up on their area of expertise.
“I do it because I enjoy working with the producers and farmers, and financially it supports my other habits (horses and dogs) and my income,” she said.
Plus, Western requires that instructors earn and maintain a five-year certificate through work experience and continuing education in the field, said Harper.
“My job as an instructor at a technical college is to stay up to date with trends and make sure students are up to date with an agricultural society that is constantly changing,” she said.
Kyle Backstrand has been concentrating on polychlorinated dibenzo-dioxins this summer.
As chairman of the Chemistry and Physics Department at Viterbo University, he’s been researching the fastest method to analyze pollutants in the environment as well as teaching a four-week summer chemistry course. “It’s hard to get research done during the year because you are busy with classes,” said Backstrand. “In the summer, you can devote a large amount of time to a research project.”
At the end of May, Michael Smuksta, associate professor of history at Viterbo, kicked off the school break with a trip to Ecuador along with 12 other Viterbo faculty and staff. They’re looking for ways to integrate material about Ecuador and Latin America into new courses being developed for a Latin American studies minor at Viterbo and investigating possibilities for study abroad or internship opportunities in Ecuador.
Smuksta said the rest of his summer will be busy with work on campus, from helping coordinate student registration to developing a course he’ll teach in the fall.
He sees plenty of other faculty around campus during the summer, which is a prime time for “tinkering with classes.”
“You change the books to keep it interesting — not just for the students but for yourself,” he said.
Besides writing an online psychology text book, Betsy Morgan, a psychology instructor at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, is revamping the Introduc-tion to Psychology class and adding more online components.
“Teaching a full load doesn’t allow time to do things we have to do to be active scholars,” she said. “I use January and the summer time for that thinking and writing time.”
KJ Lang can be reached at (608) 791-8226 or klang@lacrossetribune.com.
