One of the most understated relationships in a student’s daily life is the relation between student and professor — professors pour into students every day, positively alter their lives, feed them knowledge and shine light on their ideas. They have an unequivocal effect on students’ minds. Professors provide academic nourishment otherwise unavailable to students and color their minds with scholarship.
Professors know students’ thoughts and ideas. Professors read, edit and critique the work produced by the minds they so diligently cultivate. Yet, the work of professors is often unknown territory to students without time spent carefully combing faculty websites in search of professors’ research and accolades.
Professors continue to produce work outside of teaching to fulfill the research the university and professorship requires. However, some professors go beyond research requirements and continue to hone their craft while they teach.
Catherine Pierce, co-director of Mississippi State University’s creative writing program, is the author of two volumes of poetry and is published in a plethora of literary reviews. She said via email she finds her writing gives her a sense of camaraderie with the students she teaches.
“I hope my students find it encouraging to know that I’m doing the same sort of work I’m asking them to do and that I’m facing the same kinds of challenges daily with regard to revising and generating new ideas,” Pierce said.
Brent Funderburk is the fine arts thesis coordinator for MSU’s Department of Art. His work hangs at the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson, Miss. He said as an artist he uses an extensive amount of his time to create, pretend and delve into ideas.
“I just wanted to run away, to be alone and make things,” he said. “It was always a spiritual experience to be alone. I deeply long for that state — to be alone, to find things.”
Funderburk finds part of his identity in his utilization of art as a creative outlet. He said there is also an equal part of him that identifies with students and yearns to help them understand the creation of art.
He explained his underlying need to teach others art, paralleled with his introspective desire to create, leads him to be an introverted-extrovert and exhibit a need to converse with people who share the same ideas about art. He said it is this part of his person that led him to teach.
“You can’t be still and quiet and working all at the same time, so I was encouraged to teach. I like to perform, so that was a stage where you can have a conversation,” Funderburk said. “The studio classroom is a place where you can jam with your students. Their ideas, your ideas — everyone can play music together and orchestrate that classroom.”
MSU’s School of Architecture makes significant strides to close the gap between professor and student this month. Tau Sigma Delta architectural honor society presents “Exposing Faculty,” a gallery exhibit specifically geared to display the sketches, sculptures, models and other works produced by School of Architecture faculty.
Housed in the peninsula of windows that make up Giles Gallery, Jacob Gines, visiting assistant professor of architecture and faculty adviser to TSD, has models and sketches in the exhibit that are some of the first to catch the eye upon entry.
His sketchbooks display structures across Spain and America with minimalistic beauty in intricately illustrated pencil with watercolor overlay. His master’s thesis, “Hip-Hop in Architecture,” is on display and includes a book ranging from historical accounts of hip-hop to architecture models scaled after the beats of a Tupac Shakur song. Gines said the catalyst for part of his thesis is the similarities he sees between hip-hop music and the design of buildings.
“I wanted to analyze them (hip-hop songs) based on the rhythms, and beats and patterns that existed. Architecture really deals with those same principles, rhythm and proportion and scale,” Gines said. “It’s very clear in hip-hop because those beats are expressed so clearly.”
Gines said the “Exposing Faculty” gallery allows the architecture faculty an opportunity to display the creative work and models they produce outside the classroom.
“At the School of Architecture, we interact with our students so directly all the time. We are constantly critiquing their work,” Gines said. “I think when the students see the work that we’re doing, they probably take us a bit more seriously.”
David Lewis, fourth year architecture major and current president of TSD, is the student curator of the “Exposing Faculty” exhibit. To create the exhibit, he received instruction from the majority of professors featured in the exhibition. He said he gains invaluable inspiration from viewing his professors’ work.
“I think it’s been really beneficial to be able to see that not only do the professors do architecture works, but they do other works. They can pursue other creative outlets,” Lewis said. “Plus it also gives us a really grounded sense. It establishes the credibility of our professors. To see these pretty incredible things that they’ve done gives us not only faith in the things that they know, but in the opportunities we have out there for us.”
The “Exposing Faculty” exhibit is currently on display in the Giles Gallery on the third floor of Giles Hall until Oct. 15.
