Today is Katie Carl's last day of work at John A. Logan College. Tomorrow is her first official day of retirement. That can't go unmentioned. Her last day in the classroom was in May; she has taught on-line, this summer. She didn't get a gold watch, there wasn't a reception for her at the College (she didn't want one and some of her friends would have been in an awkward position attending, given that they were laid off!). She didn't make a speech, though David Cochran made an eloquent toast at a private party, in her honor, earlier this summer.
The College she loved fell apart and the job she loved changed. As she heads toward the proverbial door, she's been questioning, "was it all worth it?" "Did I waste 30 years of my life?" No. ...No!
While teaching ENG 101, (in addition to Mythology, Speech, Literature and Journalism) which every college kid has to take, she touched hundreds (thousands?) of lives over the years. I started to type "young lives", but so many of them weren't. She loved the returning, non-traditional aged, students. And she gave them the confidence to go to college, after so many years removed from the class room.
As a role model, she was a magnet for the troubled students, some of whom treated her as a mother figure and clung, by phone and letter, to her for years after leaving Logan. As an advisor for Phi Theta Kappa, she gave some students their first glimpse outside of southern Illinois and first glimpse of a cosmopolitan city.
As advisor for the Journalism program, she learned herself, and then taught her student staff, how everything from newspaper writing to investigative techniques to the nuts and bolts of advertising sales and getting the stories into print. She traveled to the printing plants and took students to conferences. Then, when the technology changed, she started over and she, and they, learned how to produce on-line content. She has former journalism students living across the country. She is their biggest fan and many of them remain hers.
As an academic advisor, she didn't just make the effort to understand what the students needed to transfer and how to build a schedule. She guided many into unthought-of (as yet, by them) majors and careers. Her former students and advisees include lawyers, teachers, photographers and journalists.
She was always excited to think up, or learn of, a new teaching technique. She took pride when others asked to copy her discoveries and she loved the camaraderie of discussing students and teaching with her colleagues.
Just when she finally achieved her ambition of becoming department chair (a position she wanted not because of extra money, but because she could put many of her ideas into effect), the Board of Trustees reorganized the College and abolished her chair. They also laid off 55 of the Logan staff. While frustrated at what happened to herself, as a result of the reorganization, she was broken hearted at what had happened to others. She not only took an active role in the grievance process, defending her fellow teachers, she became a shoulder to cry on, a sympathetic ear and a voice of counsel.
She didn't just teach Mythology, she related the stories to the present day. She taught her students that lessons, values, triumphs and tragedies of the gods and goddesses, and the concepts such as "hubris", were always applicable to our democracy. Teaching mythology didn't end at the school house door. For 30 years she has been telling the stories to this son of a Greek, who knows so much less about it than she. She, last night over dinner, once more, explained how Cassandra, Athena, and Aphrodite related to the story of Agamemnon, Achilles and the Trojan Horse. Logan's loss is the gain of her oldest student.
Good job, Katie Carl! Congratulations!
