Your life always goes in interesting ways. I basically chose Virginia Wesleyan because Corey Hansen '78, who was my best friend, was going there and he said I'd like it. For a 19-year-old, that's probably a pretty good decision-making process. It was really guidance from above, if you will. He said I'd like it, so I applied and got in. That was a life-changer for me as a student.
On VWC biology and chemistry professor Dr. Betty Jefferson Harris
I was fortunate to be introduced to Dr. Betty Jefferson Harris.* She was my advisor, but she was my
mentor, and there's a difference. She turned me on to biology and microbiology, which is the career I've taken since I left Wesleyan. She really came into Wesleyan and built that biology program to funnel students into professional degrees, whether in the true professions, the medical professions, or whether they were PhDs. She introduced me to Phil Hylemon, who was at the Medical College of Virginia (Virginia Commonwealth University), and I ended up doing my Ph.D. under his mentorship. She helped me with that process of getting into graduate school and with making the decision to do that instead of medical school. When I got here to Illinois, I tried to teach my biochemistry class like she taught her biochemistry class. That's a huge testament to her. She was an inspirational teacher and an inspirational mentor. She touched a lot of people. That experience was life changing. Some may call it luck, but I believe that there's somebody up there guiding all of this and we just follow His path. I was fortunate to be on the same path with Betty Jefferson Harris.
*Dr. Betty Jefferson Harris was a professor of biology and chemistry at Virginia Wesleyan from 1975-2000. She passed away in 2004.
On the value of a "small college difference"
I think that's another thing that made me successful, and that's what makes Wesleyan successful--small classes, knowing your professors on a first-name basis. Some of my classes my last year had three students. We met in the professor's office; there was no reason to go to a classroom. That sort of hands-on interaction is so different from what we have at Illinois. I'm fortunate at Illinois that I did teach a class that was only about 25 students for a long time, which is a small class here at Illinois for upperclassmen. In the last few years it's grown into 60-70 students out of necessity, and I can't teach it the same way. At Wesleyan you don't have to compromise teaching style or interaction style with students because the class size is small enough that you can be very interactive, very one on one. It's the small class size, it's the intimate learning atmosphere, and it's having advisors who are mentors. At Wesleyan you're going to have the opportunity to be
mentored as a student, as opposed to being
advised as a student. There are key differences between those two words.
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