Ed Funkhouser has been an incredible mentor to me throughout my time at State and after.
He has a really great
grasp of the balance between
theory and practice and I think that has been very helpful for me
as I've gone through undergrad and through my graduate studies
of wanting to delve deep into a subject
but also wanting to make sure, like I keep on saying,
that that subject pertains to work in the world.
As someone who has worked a lot with production but also communication theory
and history he's been a wonderful resource and guide to me
as I navigated those waters.
Sandy Stallings was my communication advisor.
She's a public speaking teacher and she's a communication advisor and interdisciplinary studies.
But she was the teacher of that Capstone course
and helped me also think about how to coalesce what I'd been working on into a project,
and has been just a great life coach too
because at State I would do ten thousand different things at a time.
I would come into her office for advising and rather than say, "What course do you want to take?"
she'd say, "John, are you getting rest? [Laughs]
"Are you taking time for yourself?" and that was also very valuable.
Probably if I'm thinking about something that shaped me as a person at State,
the University Scholars program and the staff there
really opened my eyes to the world.
I came from a small town in Sanford, I'd never been out of the country,
never been west of the Mississippi River before college,
and they opened my eyes to the world
and different ways of looking at the world and respecting different ways of looking at the world.
I didn't go to another country with Scholars program
but they brought people from different countries to us and had film series and book clubs
and conversations that really opened my mind,
taught me to think for myself, and I would not be in the place I am if it weren't for the University Scholars program.