Volume 27, Issue 4
Tuesday March 18, 2014
Spotlight on Instructor: Sarah Derouin Written by Cindy Torres Growing up, Michigan native Sarah Derouin knew she wanted to become a teacher. Since both of her parents were teachers, she realized from an early age her love and ambition to become one and as such, she knew it was only a matter of time before she also followed the same path. How she became a Geologist, however, is a completely different story. Derouin attended St. Norbert College in Wisconsin to pursue her undergraduate degree in teaching. She took all the required courses, including science, but felt she wasn’t getting the learning experience she’d originally anticipated. “I liked science,” She says, “but wasn’t really enjoying some of my science classes and was a little disenchanted. I took a winter break field course with the geology department on a whim, they were doing research projects and a geology-focused trip to Costa Rica and I thought it sounded fun.” Within that short matter of time, Derouin discovered a new passion. “It was amazing-- both for the things I saw and learned about and the fact that I fell in love with geology.” Once she returned to school for the spring semester, Derouin decided she would
(alongside secondary education) pursue geology as her major. She later attended Fort Hayes State University in Kansas for her masters and ultimately the University of Cincinnati for her doctorate. While in grad school, Derouin decided to shift her focus towards geology, later landing a job working as a Geologist for the government. Derouin shares that although she enjoyed her position, she was eager to get back into the classroom. Once she learned of a teaching position opening at Front Range, Derouin applied and was hired shortly afterwards. Though she has had previous experience working as a teaching assistant in college, Derouin describes teaching for the first time in a real classroom classroom as being a great learning experience, one “you learn more about the longer you teach.” Derouin shares that she has really enjoyed her experience at Front Range so far, one reason being because she is able to incorporate her day job with teaching. In addition to being a geologist, “I’m also a glacial geologist by training, so whenever we talk about that I get to talk about my job
and my research so it’s pretty fun. [Working outside of the classroom] gives me a lot of experience to bring back into the classroom. I also have a lot of empathy for the students here because they are juggling a lot of different things like work, school, family… so that gives me a little more empathy because I learn to better understand how to balance it all.” Looking back on her career, Derouin doesn’t regret pursuing geology one bit. “I’ve had such a great career with geology, it’s given me so many opportunities to travel, so many opportunities to learn new things and meet really interesting people.” When asked what advice she would give prospective Geologists, Derouin says, “The best piece of advice I can give is to try to get out in the field as much as possible with other geologists... as part of the classes here, we have field trips, but real world experience
Photo by Cindy Torres
is really the best. To get out there and touch and feel things, ask questions and get exposed to as much as you can is really important.” When she’s not researching or teaching, Derouin likes to spend some her free time doing, who would have guessed? Riding her motorcycle. “I’ve always wanted to, I grew up on a farm and since my dad had a motorcycle we would go out and ride on the farm. My husband also rides, and so when he moved to Colorado with me about five years ago, he had a motorcycle and I didn’t want to sit on the back so I took the class and we both have bikes now.”
In This Issue… Pre-requisite Math and English Courses to be Modified. . . . . . . . . . 2
Sign Up For Tutoring Services . . . . . 4 Writing and Publishing— Insights
Favorite FRCC Instructors:
from Published Author, FRCC’s Nick
Front Page Staff Edition. . . . . . . . . 3
Morris. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Upcoming Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Safe Place to Share Your Writing— Spotlight on the Writing Club. . . . . . 7 Hot Headlines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Overheard in the Office. . . . . . . . . . . 7