A winding path to a dream job New English professor nds herself teaching a subject she had declared she never would

Roundup Reporter

Beginning her first year as an assistant professor of English at Pierce College is something one professor would have never seen herself doing in high school.

Emily Anderson is 28 years old and one of the new full-time professors here at Pierce.

“In high school I remember I declared to my English teacher, ‘I never want to be an English teacher,’” Anderson said. “How can you want to teach this subject, it’s so subjective?”

As she continued to take the required English courses at the University of California, Los Angeles, her love of the written word began to grow.

“I took some classes and I really started enjoying it. And then I thought ‘How can I make this a full-time job, talking about books and talking about effective writing, and reading articles and poems and short stories,’” Anderson said. “Majoring in English is the way to do that.”

Anderson approaches the subject by giving her students the lasting tools to evaluate a piece of writing.

“I like to focus on how to think about something as opposed to what to think,” Anderson said. “I want them to think about how things work, how an effective essay works, what a good thesis statement is. So I guess the theme of all my classes is how to think about literature and writing as opposed to just memorizing things all the time.”

Anderson holds her classes to high standards but is also willing to take the time to help.

“She’s nice but she’s really hard at grading though. I thought because she’s younger she’d be more easy going,” said Ashley Guadamuz, an 18-year-old veterinarian major in Anderson’s English 28 class. “She’ll explain and if someone doesn’t understand she has a lot of patience.”

Anderson holds dedicated office hours and is very inviting whether or not students have an appointment.

Jamie Ray, 30, is an English as a Second Language (ESL) instructor whose office is in the same building as Anderson’s. She has noticed Anderson’s commitment to her students.

“I can hear her having conversations with her students and they all seem to benefit from meeting with her. Very friendly and approachable and also humble.

I think it’s really important for instructors to be able to admit when they feel that they don’t know everything,” Ray said. “She’s English, I’m ESL. So if she has an ESL question she’ll ask me, if I have an English question I’ll ask her. I think that’s a good characteristic.”

Originally from Manhattan Beach, Anderson previously taught as an adjunct at Pierce, Cerritos College, and Harbor College before landing the full-time job here.

She also loves to travel, and in the summer of 2007 took the part in a program teaching in China.

“It was this really cool program that you can do if you’re a junior or a senior in college and if you are an English major. If you’re interested in teaching you can apply,” Anderson said. “They basically pay for your flight and for a very rudimentary dorm room in exchange for your teaching.”

This wasn’t the only time Anderson had to deal with a cramped living situation.

After UCLA, Anderson did her postgraduate studies at New York University living in an apartment that Anderson describes as a little bigger than her office.

“There was a kitchen in there. There was a bathroom and a ‘bedroom.’ It was basically just a closet,” Anderson said. “It wasn’t even an actual door. It was a doorframe and you just fall into the bed.”

Although her living conditions were cramped, outside of her apartment is what made the experience worthwhile.

Anderson has a passion for architecture, city planning, and urban design. Her time in New York strengthened that passion.

“I just fell in love with the lifestyle, being able to walk around places and look at buildings,” Anderson said.

Currently Anderson lives in downtown LA where she can soak up what the city has to offer.

She often encourages her students to take advantage of the area we all inhabit.

“I’m a big downtown LA booster. I’m really interested in cities. I’m always on the blogs looking at what’s going to open up downtown,” Anderson said. “I’m always telling my students ‘Go visit downtown. It’s not as scary as you think, I promise.’”

Wednesday, April 23

Alpha Gamma Sigma meets at 1 p.m. in BUS 3206.

The Psychology Club meets at 1 p.m. in the ASO Conference Room.

The Political Science Club meets at 1 p.m. in the ASO Office.

The Philosopy Society meets in the ASO Conference Room at 2:30 p.m.

Thursday, April 24

The Anthropology Society meets at noon in CNC 3808. Alpha Gamma Sigma meets at 1 p.m. in BUS 3206

The French Club meets at 2 p.m. in the ASO Office.

Monday, April 28

Habitat for Humanity meets at 4 p.m. in BEH 1309.

Tuesday, April 29

The Architecture Club meets at 3 p.m. in AT 3800 The Business Economics Students Association meets at 3 p.m. in the ASO Conference

Despite this, there are a number of experiences available to those who take classes in the department or participate in the club.

Humankind has been around for quite a while now, and many areas under anthropology have sprung up to study our past and present, spanning from archaeology and humanities to biology and natural sciences.

Anthropology has been at Pierce College since 1956. The Anthropology Society came along not too long after, being formed in the 1960s. The club currently meets on Thursdays from noon to 1 p.m. in CNC 3808.

The group has been running steadily since its inception, according to the club’s current adviser Noble Eisenlauer.

“The whole purpose of a club is to explore things you can’t in a class,” Eisenlauer said.

Eisenlauer has advised the club for eighteen years. Students seem to like him as well, according to the club president Christaline Nederlk.

“He’s very encouraging,” Nederlk said. “He got me to participate in my first dig.”

The Anthropology Society

Eisenlauer Professor of Archaeology

hosts a number of events and field trips related to the various anthropological fields.

There are museum visits, film festivals, hikes to places of interest, outings to native areas, and they even manage the flower sales during graduation.

Eisenlauer says he’s noticed a decline in support for campus groups in his time here, which has lead to a downturn in attendance and interest in clubs overall.

“We don’t have a focal point.

There’s a lack of coordination,”

Eisenlauer said of the change over time. “Students lose incentive when there’s a lack of support.”

Among them is an invite-only lab, where students get the chance to go out on digs. The lab counts as credit as well as work-study.

The class is currently working on a dig site that seems to have been a sacred area for the Chumash people. The site is located on the grounds of a school in Chatsworth, and currently has four trenches dug to search for the history of the area.

“The school has been good about letting us in,” said Kyle Montgomery, a club member and student participating in the dig.

There is more to look forward to from the Anthropology Society, as some old traditions are being brought back to light.

The newsletter they used to release is being organized again after a hiatus, according to Nedelk.

Through the ages, anthropology has blossomed into an array of interesting fields.

As humans continue to reach out, invent new things and evolve as a society, there will only be more to document and study.

Concert review: Students a end concert by e Varied Trio

Students crammed into an auditorium atop a hill at the Pierce College campus to get their weekly dose of contemporary classical music on Thursday, April 17.

The week’s free show featured a four-piece set by The Varied Trio, a group of classical musicians with an atypical sonic palette of violin, piano and percussion.

Before the trio played composer Vicki Ray’s “Jugg(ular) ing” to old, crackly footage of juggling acts, pianist Aron Kallay put the group’s eccentric style in perspective.

“Have you covered the Baroque era yet? How many composers did you talk about? Two, three?” Kallay asked the audience. “Right? That was 400 years ago. Well new music, the stuff we’re playing right now, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of composers are vying for your ears.”

Adjunct instructor of music, James Bergman, who organizes the concerts, invited students to expand their iTunes libraries.

“There will be kids that totally grooved out on this,” Bergman said. “This is first-rate stuff that comes to campus, and it’s free.”

Kallay, who teaches electroacoustic media and piano at the University of Southern California, explained that today’s classical musicians are pioneers of the contemporary soundscape. “We just get so many different variations of sound, with all the percussion and all the varied techniques I do inside the piano,” Kallay said. “Composers really use the whole instrument.”

Percussionist Yuri Inoo spent the set negotiating her musical playground, rearranging a stage swallowed in instruments between movements.

The opening piece, “Vanishing Act” by composer Takuma Itoh, was written for the trio. Itoh’s website says the nine-minute piece calls for 20 types of percussion instruments including a vibraslap, bass drum, bongos and three small cymbals tuned to different notes.

D’Andre Abrego, 19, said the performance left a lasting impression.

“It was pretty good. Pretty psychedelic,” Abrego said. “I’m going to try and get some of their music.”

There are five remaining concerts of the semester, one of which will feature Pierce students. They are open to the public and will be in room 3400 of the Music Building Thursdays at 12:45 p.m.

Poetry prodigies present prose

Library o cials host poetry contest for National Poetry Month

Pierce College students, faculty and staff are celebrating National Poetry Month all throughout April, offering written and spoken word style poetry events with prizes ranging from a $20 Amazon gift card to a $150 first place prize.

Hosted by the Pierce College library, students will be allowed to submit a one page paper telling all about a favorite poem and what it means or a 20 second video performing their favorite poem or lyric.

Submissions can be entered for the contest or displayed to the public on the Pierce College Library Facebook page. Students can praise their favorite poets and poetry by writing their