HUMANITIES & SOCIAL SCIENCE
ART ALUMNUS TEACHES ALONGSIDE MENTOR "I COULD TELL EVERYONE CARED JUST AS MUCH AS I DID. THAT MEANT SO MUCH TO THE 18-YEAR-OLD ME, AND IT’S NOT LOST ON ME HOW RARE THAT IS." -COHAN
BEN COHAN BEGAN
his artistic journey at Lake Land College, with Jodi “Jo” Birdwell as his advisor. Cohan and Birdwell now teach alongside one another as art instructors. “I remember I told Jo ‘I want to do what you do’,” Cohan said. “I trusted Jo to lead me in the right direction, and now here I am doing exactly that. I love being in the school environment and having the energy of learning all around me.” Cohan said his love of art began in high school, but it was not until he reached college that he decided to pursue art as a career. 14 LAKE LAND COLLEGE s LAKELANDCOLLEGE.EDU
Art made me more satisfied than anything else, so I knew that was what I wanted to do,” Cohan said. “Studying art in college was a humbling experience. There was a lot of healthy competition and camaraderie, but it was more confidence-building than egoshattering.” “I knew when I first met Ben that he was a good artist and a good student,” Birdwell said. Cohan followed Birdwell’s advice and went on to earn a master of fine arts degree from Southern Illinois University Carbondale.
“Teaching is a creative endeavor,” Cohan said. “It’s best to change things up in the moment and bring in each group’s interests. That’s something I learned from Jo. Otherwise I would have burnt out a long time ago.” Expressing gratitude to Lake Land both for being instrumental in his career path and for giving him the chance to share his knowledge with students, Cohan said he has loved his experience with Lake Land College, both as a student and as an instructor. “I have made some of my longest lasting friendships here, including mine and Jo’s,” Cohan said. “When I was a student at Lake Land, I could tell everyone cared just as much as I did. That meant so much to the 18-yearold me, and it’s not lost on me how rare that is. Now I do my best to make sure my students feel that same care and support in the classroom that I felt from Jo.”
Scan here to meet Jo and take a deeper dive into all the Lake Land College Art programs have to offer! Then stick around to explore other Laker Life blog posts.
