“I love listening to, reading about, thinking about and writing about music. In a lot of ways it is more important to me than literature, but one thing these two have in common is that they drive my curiosity. I can’t think of anything more motivating.

“I completed my Master of Art degree when I was very young and wasn’t sure what I really wanted to do with my life, so I taught part-time at a major university in Birmingham, Ala. and spent the rest of my time writing about music for Black & White, a local alternative news weekly and the now-defunct online music publication.

“Through the local writing I met and began working with a musician named Brian Teasley who toured (and still tours) as a drummer and had recently opened a small nightclub. That club fulfilled a thirst in the city to witness performances by smaller, internationally touring indie artists, and soon it became very popular. We promoted a wide variety of acts, from Grammy-award winning jazz artists to garage rock bands. It was an exciting time to be working in the music industry. [It was] a sort of sweet spot between the heights of the music business in the 1990s and the wasteland created by streaming services like Spotify, which have essentially bottomed out the independent music industry across the board.

“One thing I value about my experience is that I took time off between my master's and PhD ... about six years. While that means I am usually older than others in my cohort at the college, it also means I have more “real life” experience. That is, experience living life outside of academia, which I value more than I can say. I’d like to think that that experience shapes the way I teach my courses and the advice I’m able to give my students in thinking realistically about their futures beyond St. Norbert. That sense of practicality is ‘elevating,’ I hope!”