Inspiration can be a two-way street in the classroom and for Andrea Shaw, Ph.D., assistant director of the division of humanities and associate professor in the Farquhar College of Arts and Sciences, it definitely is.
Shaw teaches many courses like creative writing, composition and literature, and she is always inspired by her students. Currently she is teaching a fiction course in the Master of Arts in Writing program, and she said her students play a huge role in influencing her own writing.
“As they’re developing in a certain area, I see that spark of energy and excitement and see how that translates to the work they produce. When I look at their writing now in comparison to what they produced in September and October, it helps me believe even more in my ability to grow because I see what that short amount of time has done in their creativity,” she said.
Shaw also hopes what she teaches affects her students long-term because her courses involve a lot of critical thinking. She said her classes make the students look at the material in a different way and have them think about various aspects of it and what it symbolizes.
“I think it’s important to develop that habit for general life pursuits. You ask questions about what something seems to suggest or you question your own beliefs and figure out how to support certain claims or ideas you have. It’s an important ability to have,” she said.
Although Shaw enjoys the classroom, she also enjoys her position as assistant director in the division of humanities. She said she searched for a position where she could wear two hats — administration and teaching. NSU was a perfect fit.
Shaw said, “Believe it or not, and many of my colleagues may be surprised or laugh, but I really like doing organizational things. I like putting systems in place that help keep things organized and flow smoothly and effectively. That’s why I was drawn to administration.”
Her two positions also allow her to help build NSU, which is one thing she enjoys about the university. She said NSU is a vibrant institution and the benefit of being young is that it’s still growing.
“Innovative ideas are floating around. We, as faculty, have the opportunity to have a say in the direction of how the school develops, like the kind of majors we add to our curriculum. NSU is dynamic. You’re not just in the classroom. We have a meaningful role in the direction in which the university develops,” she said.
One way the university has de-veloped is with the addition of the Faculty Lecture series, which Shaw participated in on Nov. 1. She spoke about her new research project exploring how the Caribbean is represented in juxtaposition with the supernatural.
Shaw said she’s always had an interest in magical things, like the idea that what we see, feel and touch is not all that there is. There’s more, she said, and this is an opportunity to explore that and see what it means with the combination of the Caribbean and the supernatural.
Shaw said the research project is both exciting and terrifying because you enter into a project with a presumption of what you will find and the claims you’ll be able to make, but you’re not sure of what you will discover.
“At some point in the project, you wonder if it makes sense, or if you’ll find what you thought you were going to find. But at the same time, it’s exciting to go on that journey. It’s a combination of dread and intrigue,” Shaw said.
