Junior faculty adjust to campus life

Lisa Skemp Kelley, center, talks to her nursing students, Gail Henry and Tatum White, about their practicum work at the Pheasant Ridge Neighborhood Center in Iowa City. Photos by Tom Jorgensen.

Especially during tough budget times, attracting and retaining the best faculty members can be a challenge for college administrators. fyi visited with several assistant professors at Iowa to find out about their experiences on campus as well as their first impressions. Stories by Sara Epstein Moninger.

Lisa Skemp Kelley: Having 'too much fun'

For Lisa Skemp Kelley, there’s no place like home.

Kelley earned master’s and doctorate degrees in nursing from Iowa and hadn’t planned on sticking around. The Wisconsin native interviewed at the University of Michigan and the University of Virginia, among other schools. Iowa, however, turned out to be the right fit. She says she couldn’t be more pleased.

“With my interest in community health and gerontology, this really was an ideal place for me,” she says, noting the College of Nursing’s highly regarded John A. Hartford Center of Geriatric Nursing Excellence as well as its area of study on organizations, systems, and community health. “I’m having way too much fun. I keep thinking it will end.”

Although her first year on the faculty has been an extremely busy one, Kelley says her nursing colleagues have helped with the transition into academia. Staff members in the Nursing Research Office have assisted her in finding research funding, and administrators allowed her a reduced teaching load this year so she can start applying for grants and publishing her work.

“With the nursing shortage, there are heightened needs for teaching, so the college is making a sacrifice when it lets new professors like me reduce our teaching schedules in order to establish our research.”

So far, Kelley has received internal and external funding for dissemination of her dissertation research and for comparative ethnographic research in Iowa.

“This community is ideal for studying gerontology,” she says. “The state of Iowa is number two in the percentage of residents 85 and older.”

Kelley is undaunted about the economy and says the College of Nursing is to be commended for making a push to reach out to its constituents.

“I like the concerted effort that Dean Melanie Dreher and the college have taken to build a support base so people know what we are doing,” she says. “We haven’t always tooted our own horn. For example, the college recently had three graduate programs ranked in the top 10 by U.S. News & World Report.”

If she could address the Iowa Legislature, Kelley says she would stress the importance of having an educated populace.

“It’s critical to democracy,” she says. “And it’s essential that nurses be able to practice from a science base. Education and research are so important when it comes to determining what our population’s health needs are and how we can foster empowerment of people to wellness.”

Kenneth Tse: Making music, building a world-class studio

In 1996, saxophonist Kenneth Tse made his Carnegie Hall debut, drawing favorable reviews from The New York Times and Saxophone Journal. These days, Tse uses his training and experience to shape young musicians at Iowa.

After earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music from Indiana University, Tse planned to return to his native Hong Kong and teach. A lack of professional opportunities there, however, kept him in the United States, and he took a job at the University of Missouri.

Kenneth Tse works with saxophone student Tim Owen during a weekly lesson in Tse’s Voxman Music Building office.

In 1998, Tse gave a guest recital at Iowa and learned that a position would soon be opening on campus. He says he already felt a close tie to the University due to relationships he had formed with Eugene Rousseau, a former teacher at Indiana and a UI alum, and Himie Voxman, UI professor emeritus of music.

“There were many first-rate musicians at Indiana who had graduated from Iowa, so I heard a lot of good things about the campus,” Tse says, noting that Voxman encouraged him to apply for the job.

Something that further intrigued Tse was that Iowa had never had a full-time saxophone professor.

“I want to promote the saxophone in classical music, and I thought coming to Iowa would be a great opportunity to do so. My goal is to build a world-class studio,” he explains. “To do this, I need to be at a school that is strong enough to attract graduate students, and I feel I am able to do that here. Next year, I have students coming from as far away as Hong Kong and Australia.”

Tse says the supportive environment he has encountered on campus makes him feel as though he truly belongs here.

“I get weekly e-mails from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences regarding funding, events, meetings, and activities,” he says. “I really feel like I’m part of the college and not just the School of Music.”

Tse usually travels two or three times a semester both nationally and internationally to give performances and conduct master classes. These experiences, he says, have further strengthened his ties to Iowa.

“The level of students and colleagues here is much higher than most places I’ve been,” he says.

Although a tight budget is a legitimate cause for concern, Tse says it hasn’t affected his commitment to teach here.

“I know many colleagues at other universities are suffering heavier cuts than we are,” he says. “That makes me feel more secure. I know I can work hard and not worry about funding so much.”

Tse, a father of three, adds that living in Iowa City has been an added bonus.

“My wife homeschools our daughters, and she has found a lot of support here.”

Jerry Anthony: Preparing students to plan

Perhaps one of the biggest adjustments Jerry Anthony had to make when he arrived on campus in the fall of 2000 was living in a climate that produces snow.

Born and raised in India, Anthony came to the United States in 1996 to pursue a Ph.D. at Florida State University. He was aware of Iowa’s master’s program in urban and regional planning, and it was the first campus to receive his résumé when he began looking for a faculty position.

Jerry Anthony enjoys preparing his students for a career in urban and regional planning, a profession that he says “can make a difference for thousands of people.”

“I liked the University—its reputation and commitment to research and teaching excellence as well as its physical setting by the river—and also Iowa City,” he says of his first campus visit. “The people here are very nice and considerate. And the facilities are great. Iowa’s urban planning program is one of the older and highly respected planning programs in the country, and it attracts excellent students from across the United States and abroad.”

The Center for Teaching, he says, has been a wonderful resource.

“The first two or three semesters I was here, I went to several sessions that the center offered—from how to lead a class discussion for graduate students, to how to put together a good syllabus.”

His campus peers also have helped make Anthony’s first few years here smooth ones.

“My colleagues have spent time answering my questions and reviewing drafts of my articles,” he says. “I think it would be very difficult to beat the intellectual climate here.”

Anthony admits that someday he may return to India, but for now he’s content to remain a Hawkeye.

Article by Sara Epstein Moninger