Episode 3: Sean Forbes

The Episode

So here’s the big reveal, Ali’s not the only one behind Professors Are People Too! Sean Forbes, an Assistant Professor-in-Residence and the Director of Creative Writing, is Ali’s podcast advisor. Week-to-week, Ali and Sean meet, they talk about writing, horoscopes, and obviously, the podcast! But while Ali’s busy making the first two episodes, Sean’s making a little art of his own. Ali ventures beyond their weekly meetings and finds that everyone’s got a lesson to teach and a lesson to learn.

The Podcast

Professors Are People Too is a show hosted by an English major looking to find the person behind the Ph.D. Trying to rebuild the professor-student relationship, host Ali Oshinskie takes us on a tour of the professors who transformed her learning experience from lecture-hall lost to office-hour happy. In collaboration with University of Connecticut’s English Department and WHUS, UConn’s Sound Alternative, this podcast ventures off the syllabus into lessons that can’t be graded.

Other Episodes!

Episode 5: Victoria Ford Smith

Episode 4: Dwight Codr

Season 2: Introduction

Episode 3: Sean Forbes

Episode 2: Cathy Schlund-Vials

Episode 1: Gina Barreca

Please subscribe in iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or wherever you get your podcasts. So many options!

The People

Sean and I in his office.

Providencia by Sean Frederick Forbes, check it out!

My boyfriend, Pawel and his friend, Miguel playing at Sean’s reading for The West End Poetry Society at the Metro Cafe in Hartford, CT.

Sean at the West End Poetry Society reading.

The Music

• Sean Forbes–“I’m Deaf”, Check out more of Sean’s music at www.deafandloud.com
• Podington Bear–Intermezzo
• Podington Bear–Undersea Garden
• Pawel Kostyk, originally by Jack Strachey–These Foolish Things (Remind Me Of You), Check out his SoundCloud!
• Podington Bear–Memory Wind
• Podington Bear–Plastique
• Podington Bear–Dimlight

The Transcript

ALI OSHINSKIE, HOST: In this episode of People are Professors Too…

[RECORD SCRATCH]

Wait what? You heard me. People are professors too because in this episode I’m taking you to the professor who I first knew as a person and then as a professor. Meet the man behind the podcast, the poetic, the professional and the personable, Sean Frederick Forbes.

[MUSIC IN]

SEAN FORBES: And there’s a reason why in the literary world, I’m known as Sean Frederick Forbes. There’s a hearing impaired rapper and poet by the name of Sean Forbes out of Detroit. We were both born in the same year. We spell our names the same way. So we’re often confused by people who are looking for him and they’ll send me an email, and I’m thinking, “no, you have the wrong Sean Forbes.” So in order to differentiate between the two, I decided to publish under Sean Frederick Forbes.

OSHINSKIE: I’m Ali Oshinskie and this is Professors are People Too.

RECORDING of OSHINSKIE: We don’t see the human in our professors and for good reason.

FORBES: So what happened there?

OSHINSKIE: Yeah, so you kind of heard the three disjointed things in there, right? And that’s kind of what I’m still considering.

OSHINSKIE: This is Sean and I talking about the podcast.

FORBES: Actually, this might be a blessing in disguise.

OSHINSKIE: Yeah?

OSHINSKIE: Sean’s my advisor for the podcast. He’s an Assistant Professor-in-Residence and the Director of Creative Writing. When he agreed to work with me on the podcast, I’m not sure either of us knew what we were really getting into. So here’s a little back story. In August, I approached Ruth Fairbanks of the Writing Internship Program and said, “I want to make a podcast for the English Department.” And I wanted to get academic credit for it. We worked out the logistics of the credit, and the next thing I knew I was in Professor Fairbank’s office with this young, handsome, caramel-skinned professor. It’s Professor Forbes and he’s going to be my advisor. We figured out everything, and as I was leaving, I said, “Thank you, Professor Forbes. I’m so excited to work with you.” And he responds —

FORBES: Just call me Sean.

OSHINSKIE: Okay, Sean. I’m going to call him Sean. I was so excited. Professor — no, Sean — is going to guide me through this podcast. He’s young and hip, and he also likes Invisibilia which is, like, my favorite podcast too. So in the first week of classes, I go to his office hours or no, it’s our podcast meeting but it’s in his office. And it’s also like a class because I’m getting credit for it but we’re not in a classroom. Regardless, I’m all about it because I don’t know if you’ve figured it out by now, but I love office hours. And we get to have office hours every week! But I had the idea that our weekly meetings would be more like a mini classroom. He would bring a lesson plan, and I’d ask questions. Sure, he’d never done a podcast before, but he teaches creative writing, how could it be that different?

[MUSIC IN]

On a weekly basis, I would bring Sean questions.

OSHINSKIE: Are there any ideas that you have about the interview?

OSHINSKIE: And he’d pause for a minute. And then he’d say that statement that seemed to echo through the room.

FORBES: That is a good question.

OSHINSKIE: We’d talk a little more, and eventually the question would come back to me.

FORBES: What else do you want to know about him? What else do you think is intriguing about him?

OSHINSKIE: In most of our meetings, there were these moments. I’d pose a question, and we’d sit there for a minute with the “I don’t know’s.” And to be honest, I kept wondering when it was all going to kick in, when Sean would have that moment of “this is what you do” and the clouds would give way to this golden magnificent podcast, ready to go. And while I was waiting for the sky to open up, we would chat. We talked about horoscopes.

OSHINSKIE: Okay. So I’m curious to know. What’s your zodiac sign?

FORBES: Oh, I’m a Capricorn.

OSHINSKIE: What’s your favorite color?

FORBES: Blue. I always wear some shade of blue.

OSHINSKIE: You do.

OSHINSKIE: And this is where the details started to fill in. As I was telling other professor stories, I got a little bit of Sean’s. He’d illuminate some conversations with his own examples, his own teaching examples.

FORBES: I used to think that I could only write about gay, male writers or I could only write about ethnic writers, whatever ethnic means. And then I started to say well why should I limit myself in this way? Because if I’m limiting myself, then isn’t that hindering my learning experience? Because as a teacher, you don’t know everything. I really did think for a long time, “Oh, my professors know everything about literature.” No, they don’t. And I’m not going to purport to know that about — everything about literature.

OSHINSKIE: And then he told me this.

FORBES: And then there are moments where students will ask me these brilliant questions, and I have this thought pause where I’m like — I could answer this, but what if I answer it incorrectly? Or what if I don’t have the information? So I’ll just say, “Look, I’ll get back to you.”

[MUSIC IN]

OSHINSKIE: I thought about those questions, those uncomfortable room silencing questions. I started to break it down. They’re uncomfortable because I don’t have the answer. And the girl next to me doesn’t have the answer. Or anybody else in the class. And we’re sitting there looking at the professor because we’re waiting for them to give into that awkward silence and tell us. We’re waiting for them to deliver the answer because we believe that they have it, tucked away nicely in their lesson plan and poising themselves to drop the mic. But what I’m usually thinking is this.

FORBES: I could answer this, but what if I answer it incorrectly?

[MUSIC OUT]

PAWEL KOSTYK, ON PHONE: Hello?

OSHINSKIE: Hi.

KOSTYK: Hey, what’s up?

OSHINSKIE: That’s me talking to my boyfriend, Pawel.

OSHINSKIE: What are you doing this weekend?

KOSTYK: I do have — on Saturday, I’m playing at the —

OSHINSKIE: He and another friend have a jazz duo, and they play regularly at the West End Poetry Society at the Metro Café in Hartford.

OSHINSKIE: Who’s reading at it?

KOSTYK: Uh, It’s Edwina Trentham, I believe, and Sean Frederick Forbes.

OSHINSKIE: Wait, what? Sean Frederick Forbes?

KOSTYK: Yeah.

OSHINSKIE: You know wh