Hello, everyone and welcome to the On the Record podcast. I'm Austin and I am joined by my co-host Kimberly. How are you doing today?
I'm doing alright.
So, the Student Spin podcast is a sister media to the Six Mile Post newspaper at Georgia Highlands College in Rome, Georgia. The views on this podcast do not represent those of the Six Mile Post or Georgia Highlands College. Today's On the Record podcast is brought to you by your very own GHC student support services. In case you weren't already aware, they provide free academic, career, and personal counseling. Today we have joining us on the podcast, Dr. Jessica Lindberg. Dr. Lindberg is currently the Interim Dean of the School for Humanities and works in GHCs Department of Humanities. Dr. Lindbergh, we're excited to have you on here today. And thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you. I'm glad to be here.
How are you doing today?
I'm good.
Thank you so much for joining us again. And I guess we can start with some questions. So, tell us about yourself and what you do here at Georgia Highlands?
Well, I am the Interim Dean of Humanities, which means that I supervise, for lack of a better word, the English department, Art Department, Communications, Music, Spanish, Journalism, and Film. I don't think I've left anybody...oh, and Graphic Design. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot. So, all the people in those departments, all the students who are in those classes, you know, everything from figuring out what classes we need to offer to helping solve problems as they come up. It's a lot of moving pieces. But it's also like, it's fun stuff. Like film for example. Our film chair, Seth Ingram, just drove back in from the Nashville Film Festival yesterday. And this is like, part of his job is to go to those, you know, so like, making sure those things happen and keeping up with them and figuring out how we can, how Georgia Highlands College, can plug into that world.
So. tell us a bit about your education, going through college and receiving a Bachelor's at Earlham to earning your PhD at Georgia State.
Earlham is a tiny little school that not many people have heard of and it's also in Indiana. Which is not a state I would recommend. When I, um, I didn't have a clue what I wanted to do with my life out of high school, and I was not, I was kind of an average student. I wasn't really that great. But I had always really been passionate about writing. And I made this horrible mistake, which is when First of all, I didn't really apply to very many places. So when Earlham said will take you I was like, Great get out of South and I wanted to try to get out of the South. I realized later that was about getting away from my parents not getting out of the South. But um, so I got into school. And I thought to myself, okay, the one thing I love more than anything else is writing and reading. So I'm going to protect that by not majoring in it, which just doesn't make any sense whatsoever. So, I ended up majoring in Spanish.
Really?
Yes. I had no idea. I majored in Spanish primarily because I went to Spain. So I lived for in Spain for about a year. And by the time I was done, I was like, hell, Spanish is going to be easy? Well, we just made sure in that real quick.
I was looking through your credentials and everything and I saw the Spanish at Earlham and I was like, wow, that's interesting.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Um, did you have any impactful experiences while you're going through college or even before that, when it came to like your current career?
Well, going to Spain, I mean, that I mean, that was that was it's a life changing thing, any kind of study abroad, and I highly, highly recommend that and, and try to encourage it as much as possible.
Was that what you were doing is a study abroad program?
It was a study abroad program. But we lived with people we didn't know, it wasn't like, I wasn't with other college students. I was in family houses and stuff like that. And it was really life changing, not just because of that, but just like the opening your mind to the whole world outside of America, you know, and looking at things from that global perspective. I think it stayed with with me in lots of ways.
So now, we had talked before about getting your PhD and what you went through. to get that and that is a story in and of itself. So, tell us a little bit about that.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I, I don't, I don't know I was in my mid 30s. Before I decided what I wanted to be when I grew up, you know, I tried lots and lots of different things, and I just really didn't know and I think that's true of a lot of college students. Because, you know, you may have only worked one job in your whole life and how are you supposed to know what all the options are? You know, so When I moved to Rome, which was in 2000, with my husband, and I had been doing some other things, but when I came to Rome, my intention was to continue a catering business that I had started. I was at a party where I didn't know very many people, and I was catering this party. And the people, one of the people there was talking about how, you know, they really enjoyed my food, all that kind of stuff. And I said, Well, I'm gonna be sad to leave this clientele. And but I'm moving to Rome, and he said, Oh, that's really interesting. Are you going to continue to do this in Rome? And I said, Yeah, I'm planning on doing it out of my house in Rome. And he said, Well, actually, I'm the director of the health department for Rome and Floyd county, and you can't do that. So I was like, Okay, I guess I'm gonna try to figure out something else to do with my life. Because apparently, I'm not doing this. That didn't work out. But I met John Hershey, who is my predecessor here as the Dean of Humanities. And he said, You know, I came to a poetry, a couple poetry readings. And he said, you know, you could, you could do this, you could see what you could do with that. So he was the one who got me here.
So I'm guessing when you first got here, what was your first position here? How would you start off doing?
I was a student tutor, I enrolled in Georgia Highlands. Because even though I had a bachelor's degree, because I wanted to go to grad school, and I felt like I had imposter syndrome. Because I hadn't gotten a major in English. I felt like everybody in the room in grad school, like grad school is big, important, super smart people with these really big words. And I was like, I'm not gonna be able to cut it with them, if I don't know this stuff. So I enrolled at Georgia Highlands to take every single English class we offered, so that I could then go to grad school and be like, Yeah, I know what I'm talking about. So it was during then, and I worked as a student too.
How did you become a professor? And what do you enjoy about teaching at the college?
I moved into the classroom from the tutorial center in 2009, under Lanelle Daniel who was the we didn't have Dean's at that point, we just had chairs or directors. And she was the person who was over English. And she said, it's time for you to move to the classroom and I said, No, I'm not ready. I'm scared. It's gonna be scary. And she said, No, it's not for you to move to the classroom. And that was great. Because I needed that push. And, you know, as soon as I got in there, I was like, Oh, this is this is it? This is the thing I've been looking for for a long time. So yeah, I love it. I love it.
Do you run or interact with any clubs here at GHC? I saw a video on YouTube, where you had like a poetry reading, I saw, like a video of you talking about your son's video game like Minecraft?
Oh like, I don't remember it.
It was 2013.
Was that from DC? Oh, wow. Wow. Wow. Oh, yeah. Um, there was a time where Yeah, I like to, I like to do a little bit a little bit of that there was a time where I was hosting and running poetry readings from outside poets who would come in and read their work. Um, and Old Red Kimono, and I've always been involved with them. When I was that year, I was at GHC and I was the editor of the Old Red Kimono. And that stuck with me. I'm the creative writing club, you know, various things. I'm the faculty advisor for SGA.
How would you compare your teaching style now compared to when I first started teaching?
I think I'm more relaxed. Now. What was scary to me in the beginning, was the idea that I was responsible for, like dumping all of this knowledge into my students heads. And like, if they didn't get it, that was my fault. And I really felt that weight. And when I stopped, so I was like, fighting really hard, you know, and lots of quizzes, and really strict and stuff like that. And what I figured out, now they're going to get it, if it's interesting, if they want to get it, then they're going to get it and all I need to do is, is show them why they want to get it. And once I figured that out, I could relax a little bit.
Because I've had a class where, you know, they just tons of quizzes that you and others that have had five quizzes the entire semester. So if somebody is really into it, it makes it a lot easier for us to have a good professor.
I love that. Yeah, the discussions when you can generate those kinds of discussions and you lose track of time in the classroom, and everybody's really engaged. And you may be talking about something related to English, but you may not be, but that's part of the full college experience. Where else in your life do you get to have those really intense conversations, this is where it's supposed to happen.
I had a creative writing class too what it was like we wrote poetry, long stories like that. It was really interesting to be able to like expand My writing and stuff like that. So it's really interesting class actually take, I wrote a huge story that I was really proud of, like, work with other people and collaborate with their poems and stuff like that. So I definitely recommend any kind of any type of creative writing work that you do. And it's amazing. So anybody out there wants to try creative writing, definitely shoot for it if you're an aspiring writer, want to improve your writing, that's a great opportunity.
It is, it's a no prereqs class, you can show up at any time and with any kind of background. And I think we're going to try to have one class on every campus next semester.
I want to circle back just a little bit, because I know when you got your PhD, now, you said you drove back and forth to Georgia State.
Georgia State, so it took forever and I wasn't it wasn't just the PhD, I got an MFA first Master of Fine Arts. And then I moved into the Ph. D. program. And there were some lonely nights driving back and forth. Because it's not just, I mean, you're driving back and forth. But the program that I was in is a very traditional programs, there's nothing online. And the people who were in the program, we're mostly Atlanta's people. And they're also for the most part, they were 20 years younger than me. And so that was lonely, you know, that I spent a lot of time just sitting in my car in the parking deck. Just be like, I don't want to go in.
And you had kids at the time too correct?.
Yeah, yeah, I still have those kids. Yeah.
I think some of our listeners, the listeners will be able to relate to the fact that um there's some of us, especially me, because I've got four kids and that decision to pursue something that you're passionate about, weighed against, how is this going to affect them?
Right, right, the mommy guilt or the mommy guilt was huge. And that was a big, big factor. And I am really lucky to have a really, really supportive partner who was like, you know, you're going to this is worth it. Because I would come home, they're like, this is not worth it. This is not worth it. John Hershey is going to give me a job no matter what I do, you know, what am I doing this for? And then John Hershey would say this, and my husband would say this, you're doing this for you. And it's really important to finish. And I knew I needed to finish. I have three boys, I wanted to demonstrate that I could be something other than mommy. And you know, somebody's ever been cooked and cleaned, or wanted to do something different. So yeah,
You definitely work behind that local writer and stuff like that. So what made you What? What made you pursue writing? What was the spark that started your passion for writing, and poetry?
I don't remember people have asked me that question before and you hear that question? I don't know. I just always liked it. So I mean, there wasn't like a time when I was three, when I was like, Oh, I'm overjoyed by writing. It's just, it's just always been part of who I am in my nature, reading and writing.
So, do you recommend any specific books or poems?
Um, well, I recommend that people sign up for poetry daily, and just get, you know, a poem a day, and some of them are crap. And some of them are brilliant, and some of them you think about for the rest of your life. But you never know you're gonna get a book. I don't know about a book. I'll tell you the most recent book, I read that I absolutely loved The Love Songs of W.E. B. Dubois by Honoree Jeffers, I think it was an Oprah book, but she's got been nominated for several other awards. She's from Georgia. And it's a really, really fascinating stories and really beautifully written highly recommend.
What would you say makes a great writer maybe there's someone who wants to take that step and try to become one, but they're not confident enough in themselves? What would you say to them to get them over that step?
Read, read, read, read, read what you love, but read anything, figure out what your voice is, through reading in the same way that and I say this sometimes in my classes, in the same way that you can't be a great chef without tasting the food, and trying different foods. You have to read lots of things to figure out what you want to write or what kind of writer you want to be. And it just I think it just kind of seeps down into your pores, you understand better how language works and how phrases fit together and what works and what doesn't kind of develop your own style.
There's a lot of styles as you probably learned, because right now I'm taking a class with Mrs. Hattaway. It's a Communication class, so I haven't typed like an actual essay in like, a year and a half. Yeah, so it's gonna be interesting to go back into that type of world because I've written new stories and I will the radio station and the daily Tribune stuff like that. So It's been interesting to see that kind of contrast between actual like, essays writing story like a local town hall meeting so yeah, it's there's so many types of it's it's fun being a writer but it's also a great learning experience. You have your up and down days but yeah, it's uh
And the other thing about it Austin is that in a lot of ways we're all writers like anyone who is in a professional field, the people you know you talk to the people in the STEM program you are the deans and the chairs and everything what they do all day is right we're all writing all the time because you know the emails and the articulation agreements or memorandums of understanding or you know, all of those kinds of documents when right a lot so everybody's writer, we just don't know it.
We have thoroughly enjoyed interviewing you today.
Good. Good. Good.
Thank you so much Dr. Lindbergh for doing this you've been a great guest and thank you so much.
