Why I Teach: Conversations with ETSU Faculty

East Tennessee State University
  • 5.0 (6)
  • EDUCATION

This podcast celebrates the faculty of East Tennessee State University by amplifying their stories. Faculty guests discuss why they are passionate about teaching and share what impact they hope their students will make on the world. The podcast is hosted by Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle, ETSU Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs. Music for this podcast was composed by ETSU Professor Martin Walters.

  1. APR 17

    Episode 07: Mathew Desjardins

    Mathew Desjardins, a member of the College of Business and Technology, is overseeing ETSU's innovative new BlueSky Tennessee Institute. This groundbreaking program provides Tennessee students the opportunity to earn a bachelor's degree in computing and a job offer at BlueCross in just over two years. Podcast Transcript:  Professor Mathew Desjardins Because the end goal is when they are done with our degree in 27 months and they graduate and they shake your hand and they shake Dr. Noland's hand at graduation, they leave with a job offer. [Music] Provost Kimberly D. McCorkle Hi, I'm Kimberly McCorkle, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academics at East Tennessee State University. From the moment I arrived on this campus, I have been inspired by our faculty, their passion for what they do, their belief in the power of higher education, and the way they are transforming the lives of our students. This podcast is dedicated to them, our incredible faculty at ETSU. Hear their stories as they tell us, "Why I Teach." In this episode, we will talk with Mathew Desjardins from the ETSU College of Business and Technology. Matthew is part of our Computing faculty and is currently overseeing our Blue Sky Tennessee Institute. Enjoy the show. Professor Desjardins, welcome to our show. It's a pleasure to see you here today. First, I have to ask, did you drive the Tesla over today? Professor Mathew Desjardins I did drive the Tesla over today. Well, actually last night. I tried to come in the night before to get ready for an early day. So it's an interesting drive with a Tesla. You got to kind of let it go, its own control. But I, I trust it completely. It gets me from Chattanooga to here almost every week. Provost Kimberly D. McCorkle Now, well, I, I like how the Tesla is featured in, in a lot of what you do and the work that you do, so maybe we'll have a chance to talk more about that. Professor Mathew Desjardins Yeah, that'll be great. Provost Kimberly D. McCorkle I like to start my podcast out with the same question for every guest: Take me back to your first day of teaching at ETSU as a faculty member. Looking back on that day, what's one piece of advice that you would have given yourself? Professor Mathew Desjardins Man, I remember my first day teaching. Dr. Kelly Price, a former faculty member in the department, she gave me a chance to, as a graduate student, to teach for her, and at that moment, I was like, "Yeah, this is what I want to do." She really encouraged me to get to where I want, but I was kind of strict, I won't lie. You know, when you're first teaching, you're like, oh, oh man, all my other teachers were strict, right? I have to be strict. So if I can go back to Old Matt or Young Matt, I guess, I would be like: Matt, give them some slack. It's okay. They're students. Remember how it was to be a student. So that would be my one major advice. This is where you should be, yeah, but definitely give them a little more leeway because students go through a lot, and we forget that, I think sometimes. Provost Kimberly D. McCorkle Something I learned about you recently is that when you first attended as a college as an undergraduate student, things didn't go according to plan. You've been open about sharing the story. Would you tell us a little bit about that? Professor Mathew Desjardins Yeah. I came to school traditionally, right. Every student thinks, okay, you got to go to high school, then you come right out of high school and you're supposed to go to college. One major piece of advice is to listen to your mom. I should have listened to my mom. I left high school, coming to college, and I wanted to go into business. I, I love business; it's actually part of what I do in my current career in Computing. But my mom was like, "No, you're a Computing person. You do everything Computing, you have this very logical mindset." But I was like, "No, Mom. I want to go into business. I know better." So long story is I came to school, and business was not my thing. I don't think it was business or the classes. I think it was just my mindset. Some students don't realize the importance in higher education, and I didn't. I had no idea that I thought I knew better than everyone else. I thought that I can come and make my own life. I wanted to make money, so I ended up actually failing out my first three semesters, and I ended up coming back to ETSU because I wanted to better myself. But I also wanted to provide my knowledge to others and to give the opportunity to students to be like, okay, this is not for me. And now when I hear a student say that, I was like, well, I don't think that's the thing; it's let's find what it is for you. Maybe you made the same mistake I did. Maybe you ended up picking the wrong major. Maybe you just didn't connect with students; maybe you just need someone to say, hey, you can actually do this. I love my parents; they just didn't know or understand what college is. College is a full-time job; it's a job in its own, and if we come in the mentality like, hey, as faculty members we can help those students learn that school is a full-time job, that school takes a commitment, and school's not supposed to be easy. Nothing of value is supposed to be easy, and that's what I learned over those 10 years before I came back. Provost Kimberly D. McCorkle It sounds like those prior experiences really shaped you as a faculty member and shaped the way that you approach your students now. Professor Mathew Desjardins Absolutely. I always say I wish I didn't do that gap, but without that gap I wouldn't be the person I am today. Provost Kimberly D. McCorkle Yeah. I've heard you say many times that you learn as much from your students as they learn from you. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? Professor Mathew Desjardins Absolutely. I have amazing alumni, but I have a long list of these students that really inspire me to do better, anywhere from doing more research to improve my skills, introducing me to new topics, so these students push me. They challenge me to try new things. They challenge me to understand that, hey, they're human. But I also, through them, show them that faculty members are human, too. And so we have lives, we have interests. I'm down to go to a football game with the students. I had one of the Blue Sky students up here last weekend for the football game. Even though it was dreary, rainy, we still had a good time, 'cause I think allowing students to see that we're both human and understand that we want the same thing—to better each other. And so I learn that from my students, and every time I get in front of a classroom it's not me telling them what my knowledge is; it's also me taking a moment to let them tell me their knowledge and what they have passions for. Creating a learning community, it sounds like that's it. I don't have this like teacher-student; I have more of like, hey, I'm a guide. So I have this knowledge that I want to share to you, and let me guide you through these challenges of what life is called and see if we can figure out what is your best pathway. I used Dr. Dula a lot and you probably have heard Dr. Dula from many people around here, but Dr. Dula in one of his lectures he says college or a degree doesn't make you better; a degree just opens more doors. And I want to take that spirit of what I had when I had Dr. Dula and his lectures that I still watch to today about how a degree just opens doors, and I want to spread that knowledge. For me, the students are opening doors for me as we go through. Provost Kimberly D. McCorkle That's fantastic. So you work in a field, computing, that is constantly changing. How do you stay abreast of all the changes in your field? Professor Mathew Desjardins Our field changes daily. I feel like I talk with our faculty, I'm like, hey, this just happened or hey, this just happened. I would say definitely my colleagues—I want to thank every single person that I've worked with and now in the past—their knowledge that they passed on to me that our field is changing is what allows me to keep changing. I'm a person that doesn't like stagnation, so I definitely, I think I'm definitely in the right field because learning new things every day, seeing new challenges, changing our curriculum almost semesterly—you know, we have to change what we do, what we teach, what we are learning ourselves. So definitely our faculty, but our students—I think our students bring so much nuance. They come and they're like, hey, I heard this or hey, I play this or hey, I want to build the next self-driving car, right? And so we get these ideas from our faculty, we get these ideas from our students, and I think the combination of those two is what allows me to stay current to the point now where I love our curriculum development. So, you know, I'm definitely involved with our development at both the college and our department, but also at the University. So I like curriculum, for us, is what drives students to want to come to us, and I think curriculum is just as much like technology. In all of our curriculum, I know there's many changes that are coming through the university, which is a good thing. It means that we all as faculty are staying current and wanting new changes. Provost Kimberly D. McCorkle So it's important to keep the curriculum relevant to help serve students and their future goals, right? Professor Mathew Desjardins Absolutely, and I love that here at ETSU we have a range of everything, and what's really nice though is Computing is kind of central to it all. I always challenge my students: I'm like, all right, Computing is involved with everything—find me something that there's not a need for someone in Computing. You know, we're sitting here in a recording studio and there's a computer that's recording us and managing all this, and so from recording to rocket science to medical schools—yo

    27 min

  2. MAR 16

    Episode 32: Dr. Randy Wykoff on leadership, public health, and real-world impact

    Provost Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle sits down with Dr. Randy Wykoff, founding dean of the ETSU College of Public Health, to reflect on his decades of leadership, teaching, and service. From building Tennessee’s first accredited school of public health to preparing students for real-world challenges through hands-on learning and community engagement, Dr. Wykoff shares lessons from a career dedicated to improving health across Appalachia and beyond — just months before his retirement. Find out more:  ETSU College of Public Health: https://www.etsu.edu/cph/?utm_campaign=College-of-Public-Health Podcast transcript:  Dr. Randy Wykoff We believe from the beginning that we had to be world-class. I think it's critical for students to see how what they've learned works in the community. So all of our public health students, environmental health students, health admin students have to do an internship. And that's basically a semester-long opportunity for them to take what they've learned and see, "Oh, wait a minute, this really does work. I really can go out and help this agency do what they're doing." Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle Hi, I'm Kimberly McCorkle, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at East Tennessee State University. From the moment I arrived on this campus, I have been inspired by our faculty, their passion for what they do, their belief in the power of higher education, and the way they are transforming the lives of their students. This podcast is dedicated to them, our incredible faculty at ETSU. Hear their stories as they tell us "Why I Teach." In this episode, I speak with Dr. Randy Wykoff, the founding dean of the ETSU College of Public Health and the longest-serving dean of public health in the United States. Under his leadership, the college became the first accredited school of public health in Tennessee and central Appalachia and has tripled its enrollment since 2006. During his tenure, the college has secured more than $50 million in research funding and earned national recognition for teaching, research, and community service. A Tennessee Health Care Hall of Fame inductee and recipient of the U.S. Surgeon General's Medallion, Dr. Wykoff has made a lasting impact on public health education, and practice across the region. Earlier this year, he announced his plans to retire at the end of the 2025-26 academic year. So before he retires, I wanted to make sure to feature his wisdom and his insights on "Why I Teach." Enjoy the show. Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle Dr. Wykoff, welcome to the show. This is a bittersweet episode for me as we're just a few short months from your retirement, which seems like a good time for reflection. You've spent more than two decades leading the College of Public Health. What originally drew you to public health, and what ultimately brought you to ETSU? Dr. Randy Wykoff No, that's a great question. Thank you for having me today. I always tell the students that your career isn't a river. It doesn't always flow in the same direction. So I started out to be a tropical pediatrician. That was my goal. That's what I ... I'd lived in Africa as a kid, and I planned on going back. And so I went to med school, did a pediatric residency, did a residency in preventive medicine and tropical medicine. I got a certificate of knowledge in tropical medicine. I got a master's in public health in tropical medicine. And in order to go to med school, I took out a National Health Service Corps scholarship. And after interviewing at various places, for reasons that I don't quite understand, they sent me to run six county health departments in South Carolina. So two aspects of my career happened at once: one, shifting from medicine to public health, and the other was into a leadership position. So after four years, I left that and went to the FDA, where I spent a decade. I spent some time on Capitol Hill and then went to an international nonprofit. And when it became clear to me that I needed to move on from the nonprofit, I had no academic experience. I had no published research. I had no funding. So I thought, "Why not become a dean of public health?" And I saw the ETSU ad, and I had never been in East Tennessee, other than briefly to travel through it. And my wife said, "Well, if we're going to live in Tennessee, we have to live on a lake." And I said, "There are no lakes in East Tennessee." That's how little I knew about it. So that's what brought me here. I just happened to see a job. I don't know that I was qualified for it, but they gave it to me. So that's it. Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle When you look back at the early days of the college, what was your vision for what it could become? Dr. Randy Wykoff Well, when we were accredited, we were the 43rd school in the country. And we were the newest, the smallest, the least well-known, and actually the least respected by at least one metric. And we realized that we had to do something different. We weren't going to be Johns Hopkins South, right? We had to figure out a way that we could be small but world-class. And if you want, I'll talk about the hotel analogy and how that played out. But we believed from the beginning that we had to be world-class, because we had to compete with these other 42 schools. All but one of them was at a large private institution or a state land grant institution. Two things I did that I'm kind of proud of. One was the hotel analogy, which was this idea that schools of public health are like hotels. Your five-star hotel has a gold elevator and doorman and uniform and a Cartier distributor and a Michelin star restaurant – more than you could possibly use in any one hotel stay and at a premium price. But large schools of public health were like that. Then your mid-sized schools of public health are like conference hotels. Good facilities, nice part of town, one nice restaurant. And your small schools of public health are like Motel 6s. They have clean washcloths. They have soap in those little plastic containers. They meet all the minimum accreditation requirements. But no matter how well you run a Motel 6, it's still a Motel 6. So our idea was there's actually three ways you can be small in the hospitality industry and be world-class. One is a bed-and-breakfast, which is about relationships. One is an adventure, like a barefoot cruise or base camp. And the other is a destination, like a safari camp. And we thought, okay, we can be all three of those. We can be one that's really known for how we treat students and how we treat each other, one that allows students to do things they wouldn't do anywhere else, and then promote Appalachia. Don't hide from it, promote it. It makes us unique and different. So that was the one thing. The other thing I did that I think was the only other thing I'm proud of, I've always had this idea that once someone shows you they can do their job, the best thing you can do is let them do whatever else they can do. And you see that you see people just absolutely go well beyond what their job description is if you empower them to do things. And that's worked really well for us, especially as a small school. We had to have people that could step up and do things that we didn't expect. Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle That's great. Well, two of the secrets to the success. Dr. Randy Wykoff That's right. That's all there is. Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle The College of Public Health has been nationally recognized for its innovative curriculum and teaching. How do you help students connect what they learn in the classroom with real-world health challenges? Dr. Randy Wykoff I think public health is somewhat unique in that while it is an academic field, it's an applied field. And so the students from the beginning know that they're going to learn skills that will be relevant in the workplace. And my personal theory has always been that when I'm teaching, my job is to prepare the students for the career that I had. None of them will have that career. But whatever I've learned on the way is what I should be preparing them for, because anything else is a little bit artificial on my part. I know a theoretical approach, but if I talk about here's how federal advisory committees work, here's how you work with media, the skills that I had to learn along the way. Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle What teaching approaches have you found most effective when preparing students to work in communities across Appalachia and beyond? Dr. Randy Wykoff I think it's critical for students to see how what they've learned works in the community. So all of our public health students, environmental health students, health admin students, have to do an internship. And that's basically a semester-long opportunity for them to take what they've learned and see, "Oh, wait a minute. This really does work. I really can go out and help this agency do what they're doing." So that's important. And then what we do at Valleybrook is, again, it's applied skills. When we're teaching students how to make a water filter or a water pump, they're probably thinking initially, "I'm never going to do this in the rest of my life." But the reality is what we're teaching them is the process, the logistics, the ability to take what you've got and get an outcome that you need. And that's really important in public health, especially when you get to disaster response and things like that. Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle As someone who's mentored faculty as well as students, and since public health professionals are educators in their own right, what advice do you give educators who want to become effective teachers? Dr. Randy Wykoff That's a great question. I used to look at all the SAIs (course evaluations), and I discovered that there were three things that you always see in a positive SAI and two things that you always see in a negative SAI. The three things are know the material, care about students, enthusiastic. Everybody knows t

    18 min
  3. Episode 31: Dr. Kevin E. O’Donnell on John Green, the ETSU Common Read, and good writing that begins with honesty

    FEB 21

    Episode 31: Dr. Kevin E. O’Donnell on John Green, the ETSU Common Read, and good writing that begins with honesty

    In this episode of “Why I Teach,” Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at East Tennessee State University (ETSU), sits down with Dr. Kevin E. O’Donnell, Professor of English and recipient of the 2024 Stephen L. Fisher Award for Excellence in Teaching from the Appalachian Studies Association. With more than 30 years of experience teaching literature, composition, and environmental writing, Dr. O’Donnell shares insights on storytelling, writing pedagogy, the impact of technology in the classroom, and the power of honesty in writing. He also discusses teaching The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green, Appalachian literature such as Serena by Ron Rash, and his upcoming book, The Woodlands of the Mind: Rambles Through Campus Forests. Find out more: ETSU Common Read: https://www.etsu.edu/provost/common-read.php ETSU Festival of Ideas: https://www.etsu.edu/festival/ ETSU College of Arts and Sciences: https://www.etsu.edu/cas/ Podcast Transcript:  [Music] Dr. Kevin O’Donnell I love John Green's writing for one thing. It's really accessible. His voice draws you in. He starts with these quirky topics. He'll be writing about Super Mario Kart. Within a few pages, he's talking about community and luck versus skill, and these bigger issues. Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle Hi, I'm Kimberly McCorkle, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at East Tennessee State University. From the moment I arrived on this campus, I have been inspired by our faculty, their passion for what they do, their belief in the power of higher education, and the way they are transforming the lives of their students. This podcast is dedicated to them: Our incredible faculty at ETSU. Hear their stories as they tell us why I teach. In this episode, we will sit down with Dr. Kevin E. O'Donnell, Professor of English and recipient of the 2024 Stephen L. Fisher Award for Excellence in Teaching from the Appalachian Studies Association. A native of Northeast Ohio, Dr. O'Donnell earned his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee and has taught at ETSU for more than 30 years. His courses include Advanced Composition, American Literature, Literary Nonfiction, and Environmental Writing. He's the author of numerous publications, including Seekers of Scenery: Travel Writing from Southern Appalachia, co-authored with Helen Hollingsworth. This year, he looks forward to the release of a new book, co-written with his ETSU colleague, Dr. Scott Honeycutt, titled The Woodlands of the Mind: Rambles Through Campus Forests. Enjoy the show. Dr. O'Donnell, welcome to the show. I start my podcast with the same question for every guest. Take me back to your first day as a faculty member at ETSU, and looking back on that day, what is one piece of advice that you would have given yourself? Dr. Kevin O’Donnell Well, it's a great question. I have to think back and see if I can remember 30 years. It's half a lifetime ago, you know. But if I could give myself advice, I would say, young Kevin, trust the process. With writing, it's so challenging. You get papers from the students, especially in the first-year classes on the first day. And they've got all kinds of issues, and the first thing you see are the problems when you read them, and you want to fix everything. But just trust the process. You know, if they've got 15 weeks, if they get four or five good writing experiences, including revision and feedback, and over the course of 15 weeks, you can do a lot. Yeah. Thank you. Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle Reflecting on your 30-plus years in the classroom here, how has your approach to teaching literature and composition changed over the years? Dr. Kevin O’Donnell Yeah, that's kind of a related question. I don't think my philosophy has changed, but a lot of the technology has changed. I mean, I kind of developed the belief in grad school that you learn to write by having an audience, writing for audiences. But 30 years ago, typically, students would print one copy, and if you were lucky, you could circulate it, do some group work and stuff, but you couldn't publish it. And then with the development of the internet, making easier access to the internet available, I started publishing my students' work on the web, and then they started publishing their own, and you get it out in front of an audience a lot more. And that's great for writing pedagogy. And then multimedia, doing this kind of stuff, like the Whisper Room over in... We were talking about that earlier over in the Innovation Commons. Yeah. I've had my students doing that, so that's part of writing now, I think, is multimedia. You can't just think of it as words on a page. Typically, anything, it's words on a screen, and then the spoken word component, recording. So that's changed how I teach a lot. I'll have my students do an audio piece and then post it on YouTube, say. That's what they did last semester. They must enjoy that. Dr. Kevin O’Donnell The response to it was great. Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle   How do you see the connection between storytelling and how we understand our environment, culture, and region? Dr. Kevin O’Donnell Yeah, storytelling, I mean, it's... You could argue that all understanding is narrative. Like, people understand things in terms of people in places doing things, which is character-setting-plot, you know? So with the Environmental Studies minor, there's a required course that's environmental writing. We get students who are being trained in science, like biologists, who take that minor, and they come in and read some environmental literature, and you've got these science writers using narrative to make sense of the science. So I think it's a crucial component. Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle Which literary work or author has been especially rewarding for you to teach over the years, and why? Dr. Kevin O’Donnell Yeah, I love that question. There's been a lot of them. I'm teaching a book this semester, a 2008 novel by Ron Rash called Serena, which is a super well-written, super fun novel, but it takes place in Haywood County, North Carolina, in the 1920s when the Smokies were being logged. So it's set against the backdrop of this huge natural resource extraction story that shaped Appalachia, the logging of the great Appalachian forest. But it's also really dramatic. It's got these tightly written chapters. There's some great villains and some shocking murders, and it's a great book. And Ron Rash is coming to our literary festival in April. Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle Fantastic. Dr. Kevin O’Donnell So students are reading that novel, and I've taught that four or five times over the years, and it's a great, great book for an environmental writing class. Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle Is he a regional author? Dr. Kevin O’Donnell He's at Western Carolina. He's down in Cullowhee. He's probably about ready to retire, but he grew up in upstate South Carolina. And yeah, he's a great writer. Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle It must be great for students to connect to a book that's about the region. Dr. Kevin O’Donnell Yeah, and a lot of students didn't know the story that it tells, and people know the area, recognize places where scenes take place. Yeah, so it's great. That's a good one. Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle Earlier this year, you presented an outstanding lecture to kick off this year's Common Read, The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green. What about that book resonated with you, and why do you think it was a good fit for ETSU's campus community? Dr. Kevin O’Donnell Yeah, I think it was a great fit, or it seems to be getting a good response from students. And part of it, for 15 years or more, I was a fan of the Vlogbrothers. They do their YouTube science stuff. And the format is, it's basically the essay format. You've got two, 3,000 words. I love John Green's writing, for one thing. It's really accessible. His voice draws you in. And he starts with these quirky topics. Like he'll be writing about Super Mario Kart. And within a few pages, he's talking about community and luck versus skill and these bigger issues. And so I like that they're inviting, these essays are inviting and they draw you in. They're really accessible. You can read one in 15 minutes. And the five-star review format is kind of fun. Like that, my students want to write those. You give that as a writing assignment. Here's an essay, you're going to make it ostensibly a review of something. That you're going to give five stars. So your job is to evaluate. Students like it. So I think it was a good choice. I'm excited about him. Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle That's great, yeah. I know, as you said, a lot of students are excited. They've connected to his work for a long time. Students who've said he taught them what they know about history, for instance. As you know, we are excited to be able to welcome John Green to campus in just a few days to speak at the ETSU Festival of Ideas. From your experience, how does engaging with an author and hearing them talk about their work deepen students' connections to a text compared to just reading it in a classroom? Dr. Kevin O’Donnell Yeah, I think it's a big deal. It can change your relationship to the text. It sure humanizes it, you know? One thing about reading, even if you're reading for a class, reading seems like a really solitary activity. You go to your quiet space and you're sitting by yourself. But then these students are going to come together and see hundreds of other people who have also connected with the same text and see the author. It just makes it very visceral, the sense of how social reading is, even though it feels solitary in some ways it is, but it's a deeply social act. And I think one of the things I'm excited about is it's fun seeing other people who are excited about writing that you're excited about. Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle Right, ye

    16 min
  4. Episode 30: Dr. Aaron Polichnowski on curiosity and discovery in the research lab

    JAN 22

    Episode 30: Dr. Aaron Polichnowski on curiosity and discovery in the research lab

    In this episode of Why I Teach, Provost Kimberly D. McCorkle sits down with Dr. Aaron Polichnowski, associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at ETSU’s Quillen College of Medicine and recipient of the university’s 2025 Distinguished Faculty Award in Research. A nationally recognized expert in hypertension and chronic kidney disease, Dr. Polichnowski shares how curiosity-driven research, teaching medical students, and mentoring future scientists are deeply interconnected—and why helping students ask the right questions is at the heart of his work. Listen to more episodes of “Why I Teach,” where Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle explores stories of impact and success of ETSU faculty. Subscribe at https://why-i-teach-conversation-with-etsu-faculty.podbean.com/.   ETSU College of Medicine: https://www.etsu.edu/com/ Department of Biomedical Sciences: https://www.etsu.edu/com/dbms/ ETSU Health: www.etsuhealth.org Podcast transcript: Dr. Aaron Polichnowski I like explaining how it is rewarding to be able to ask a question that no one else has asked, to design an experiment, collect interpret data, and maybe shed some light on some pathophysiological process that we didn't have a clue about before. So that is a really rewarding process. Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle Hi, I'm Kimberly McCorkle, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at East Tennessee State University. From the moment I arrived on this campus, I have been inspired by our faculty, their passion for what they do, their belief in the power of higher education, and the way they are transforming the lives of their students. This podcast is dedicated to them, our incredible faculty at ETSU. Hear their stories as they tell us "Why I Teach." In this episode, we will talk with Dr. Aaron Polichnowski. Dr. Polichnowski is an associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at ETSU's Quillen College of Medicine and the recipient of the university's 2025 Distinguished Faculty Award in Research. Dr. Polichnowski is nationally recognized for his work on hypertension and chronic kidney disease. His studies have advanced understanding of how blood pressure, genetics, and environmental factors influence kidney injury and disease progression. In addition to securing nearly $2 million in external research funding, Dr. Polichnowski is deeply committed to mentoring future scientists and physicians and has directed ETSU's Medical Student Summer Research Program since 2017. Today, he joins us to share not only what he studies, but why he teaches. Enjoy the show. Dr. Polichnowski, welcome to the show. I start my podcast with the same question for every guest. Take me back to your first day of teaching at ETSU as a faculty member. And looking back on that day, what is one piece of advice that you would have given yourself? Dr. Aaron Polichnowski Well, first, Provost McCorkle, thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. I would actually tell myself two things if I had to go back to my first day of teaching medical students here at Quillen. One, I'm not going to know the answer to every question they ask, and it's not going to be perfect. One of the things that I've really appreciated with the opportunity to teach medical students is they ask really good questions that push me, that push my boundaries of knowledge. I learn something new every year from the questions they ask, and I don't know the answer to all of them. So that's something I would tell myself is to relax and just let that happen. And not being perfect -- I think a lot of us in research tend to be a little bit of a perfectionist. And like everything else, teaching is a learning process. You get better at it each year. And so I would just tell myself again, relax, just enjoy the process. Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle Thank you. Great advice. You built a nationally recognized research program in kidney physiology and disease. What originally drew you to teaching alongside research, and how do you think the two inform each other? Dr. Aaron Polichnowski It's a good question. And I would actually say I think it was probably my experience teaching fellow classmates when I was an undergrad student that probably drew me into research, because it's such a logical process when trying to understand something. So I do think it was my passion for learning overall that got me excited. I had a strong interest in teaching fellow classmates material we were learning, especially when it came to how the human body works. Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle And that was as an undergraduate. Dr. Aaron Polichnowski As an undergraduate, yeah. But the two very much go hand in hand. Running a research lab is like running a small business. How successful your lab is is going to be how successful your team is. And a lot of that is training and teaching. Teaching them why we do this research; how to do things appropriately, correctly; following a process; teaching them techniques. And on the other side of the coin, being a researcher makes me a better teacher. I think one of the things that I like doing for medical students is providing a logical process. When I see something in a textbook that's not very clear to me, I will try to make those links for students. And my knowledge in research, I think, makes it easier for me to do that. But they really do go hand-in-hand, in my opinion. And the research makes you a better teacher in all places. For sure, yeah. Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle You mentor students at every level, from undergraduate to medical students and early career scientists. What do you see as your responsibility as a mentor, and what do you hope students gain from working in your lab? Dr. Aaron Polichnowski My role as a mentor is going to depend a bit on the level of the student, undergrad, medical, someone who wants to do a Ph.D. But what I want to convey to all students is the importance, as a mentor, I think it does depend on the level of the student, the undergraduate, medical, someone who wants to do a Ph.D. But for all students, I want to convey to them the importance of what I'm doing in the lab and how it may impact patient populations, especially in this region; the importance of what I do, why I do it. But also the research process, I think it is this black box for a lot of people, including students. And so I like explaining how it is rewarding to be able to ask a question that no one else has asked, to design an experiment, collect interpret data, and maybe shed some light on some pathophysiological process that we didn't have a clue about before. So that is a really rewarding process. On the other hand, it's also very complex. Business research has a lot of moving parts. It can be frustrating. It's a slow process. A lot of the experiments we do, you're not going to lead to some groundbreaking result. They're going to be what we call negative data. And it's hard to interpret or determine where to go from results based on that study. But it's all part of the process. And the last thing I like to tell students is the value of collaboration. I would not be where I am today without collaborators here at ETSU, other institutions, and importantly, the mentors that I had. I mean, I'm so grateful that I picked labs that I did. And it was not all that happened on purpose, some of it by chance. But I am very fortunate that I worked with people I worked with. I got just spectacular training, especially in my postdoc career. I worked with clinician scientists. They were nephrologists, but also basic scientists. And that really helped me view research from a basic science to clinical perspective, translation perspective. I mean, they were asking big questions that the results could directly impact patient care. Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle Your research bridges basic science with real-world clinical implications. How do you help students see the connection between what they're learning in the classroom and its impact on patient care? Dr. Aaron Polichnowski This is one of the most rewarding aspects of teaching for me. Physiology is what I'm trained in, and physiology is medicine. So, you know, I think I mentioned before that if I read a textbook that I assign them, you know, I give them a section of a textbook to read. And if something's not clear to me, it's certainly not going to be clear to them. And so my knowledge of physiology research, physiology concepts, I like to illustrate things with graphs. I like to help students with their understanding and what they need to know when it comes to treating patients. And I think that's the beauty of physiology. A lot of what I teach is very translatable. That's going to be knowledge that they will absolutely use when they're treating patients. So very rewarding part of my job. Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle You said that fascination with the kidney’s complexity hooked you early in your career. How do you spark that same sense of curiosity and discovery in your students? Dr. Aaron Polichnowski Yeah, in different ways. You know, I will frequently tell students, "Here's what we're doing in the lab, and this is why it matters." And again, another thing, nice thing about physiology. A lot of the things that I do in my lab are things that when we go to our annual physical, we're going to get, you know, in the report, blood pressure, indices of kidney function, indices of kidney disease progression. A lot of the things I measure in my lab are exactly what's measured with patient, you know, the patient care world. Other things I like telling students that there are things that happen, you know, to the body in different procedures that we still don't have a great understanding about. I mean, for example, when someone donates a kidney, the remaining kidney in them will take over about 70% of the kidney that was donated, not 100. What are the signals that tell the kidney to stop growing? What are the signals that tell the kidn

    13 min
  5. Episode 29: Dr. Kyle Leister on launching ETSU’s groundbreaking Orthotics and Prosthetics program

    08/21/2025

    Episode 29: Dr. Kyle Leister on launching ETSU’s groundbreaking Orthotics and Prosthetics program

    Join ETSU Provost Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle in this inspiring episode of the “Why I Teach” podcast as she speaks with Dr. Kyle Leister, Assistant Professor and Program Director of ETSU’s new Master of Science in Orthotics and Prosthetics program – the first in Tennessee and one of only 14 nationwide. Dr. Leister shares his unique journey into rehabilitative medicine – from treating NHL athletes with the Pittsburgh Penguins to working on Paramount Studios' medical team – as well as his passion for student mentorship and the human side of prosthetic and orthotic care. Listen to more episodes of “Why I Teach,” where Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle explores stories of impact and success of ETSU faculty. Subscribe at https://why-i-teach-conversation-with-etsu-faculty.podbean.com/. Other resources: ETSU College of Health Sciences:  https://www.etsu.edu/chs/ ETSU School of Clinical Sciences: https://www.etsu.edu/chs/clinical-science/default.php ETSU Master of Science in Orthotics and Prosthetics: https://www.etsu.edu/chs/rehabilitative-sciences/orthotics-prosthetics/default.php ETSU Health: www.etsuhealth.org   Podcast transcript:    Dr. Kyle Leister Probably the most important part of this question is why orthotics and prosthetics at ETSU. And I think that we can tie that directly back to ETSU's mission statement, the ability to be able to serve the people of the region and beyond. Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle Hi, I'm Kimberly McCorkle, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at East Tennessee State University. From the moment I arrived on this campus, I have been inspired by our faculty, their passion for what they do, their belief in the power of higher education, and the way they are transforming the lives of their students. This podcast is dedicated to them, our incredible faculty at ETSU. Hear their stories as they tell us "Why I Teach." In this episode, we will talk with Dr. Kyle Leister. Dr. Leister serves as Assistant Professor and Program Director of the Orthotics and Prosthetics Master's Program at East Tennessee State University. One of just a handful of experts in the world holding both a clinical certification in orthotics and prosthetics and a doctoral degree, he brings a uniquely broad background to his role. Originally from Pittsburgh, his academic and professional journey has taken him from serving the Pittsburgh Penguins as an athletic trainer, to working on the medical team on Paramount Pictures' lot, to earning degrees from Northwestern University, University of Houston, and finally a Ph.D. from Syracuse University. Since joining ETSU in 2023, Dr. Leister has spearheaded the launch of the university's M.S. in Orthotics and Prosthetics, the first such program in Tennessee and only the 14th nationwide. Under his leadership, the Karl Fillauer Learning Center opened in June 2024, outfitted with leading-edge fabrication labs and collaborative clinical facilities at the Quillen VA campus. Enjoy the show. Dr. Leister, welcome to the show. I start my podcast with the same question for every guest. Take me back to your first day of teaching at ETSU as a faculty member. And looking back on that day, what is one piece of advice you would have given yourself? Dr. Kyle Leister So first of all, thank you for having me and allowing me to be a part of this. I listen to a lot of podcasts. This is actually the first time I've ever been a part of one. So thank you very much for that. Jumping right into your first question. So this is actually pretty fresh on my mind because it wasn't that long ago that we finally had students in our program and that I had the opportunity to actually get in front of them. So that day is actually pretty fresh. So I remember waking up that morning, making sure that my shirt looked good, that my socks matched my jacket, and I was ready to go out there and literally deliver the State of the Union address. I had my slides memorized, my coffee, the whole deal. So I went in and I was really focused on the time of making sure that I was nailing all my slides. I was providing all the information that the students would need. But in retrospect, I may have been forgetting about that collaborative nature, that connection that I needed to be building with the students, especially as a new program and their first time going, a lot of them going from undergrad into the master's level of learning. So while it was a valuable experience, and I think that I hopefully did a good job despite probably sweating through my shirt there at 9 o'clock in the morning, the valuable lesson that I learned from that was that it's more about the collaboration and the connection that you're building with those students, rather than the information and the depth of that information that you're trying to provide right off the bat. That will certainly come by being able to establish that initial connection is something that if I could rewind the hands of time, I would have told myself, "Try to be a little bit more focused on that than some esoteric statistic that a student may never remember whenever they go into clinical practice." So that was probably the biggest lesson that I learned and something that I wish that I could inform myself if I could rewind the hands of time. Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle That's excellent insight. Dr. Kyle Leister Yeah, thank you. Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle You've had such a fascinating journey from working with the Pittsburgh Penguins to movie sets in Hollywood. What led you from athletic training to orthotics and prosthetics? Dr. Kyle Leister Yes, so I'm sure there are listeners out there that just heard you read that description are wondering what the connections are. Yes, and it certainly is a nonlinear road that I've taken to get where I am right now. There are some central driving factors that have been present in all of my educational experiences and my clinical experiences along the way. So starting out first with my experience with the Pittsburgh Penguins, I graduated from Duquesne University in 2009 with an undergraduate degree in athletic training, as you mentioned, and I was fortunate enough that my first job right out of undergrad was with the Pittsburgh Penguins. I'm not sure how many hockey fans we have here in this part of Tennessee, but in Pittsburgh, hockey is huge. I grew up being a huge hockey fan, playing hockey and enjoying everything about the sport. To be able to land a job with a professional hockey team was a big deal. That was made even sweeter by the fact that we ended up winning the Stanley Cup in the 2008-2009 season, and it was Sidney Crosby's first Stanley Cup victory. Those of you who don't know Sidney, he's widely regarded as one of the best hockey players of all time. So to be a part of that and seeing the determination and the grit and the collaboration between the players was wonderful. It was truly inspiring. During that time, the theme that kind of became apparent to me was that no matter who you are, whether you're performing at the highest possible level, where these professional athletes were, or an individual who may have a sprained knee or something like that in your everyday daily life, there's this common link that if something is wrong, it's disrupting your ability to perform. We want to do everything that we can to get back to that baseline, back to that homeostasis. So after wrapping up my time with the Penguins, I moved out west and was performing a similar role on Paramount Pictures' lot. So I was working with a lot of the talent and the executives on that lot in a medical capacity. They had everything that you could imagine on that lot. Again, the theme remained the same, that any sort of disruption to our everyday lives in terms of injury, illness, or disability – that becomes paramount. So that fact became really, really interesting to me and something that I wanted to dive into deeper and explore at a deeper level. And that's where the human connection of orthotics and prosthetics came in around that same time is being able to work with these individuals that are performing at the most highest level. What happens whenever you have somebody that's got a profound disability and needs to get back to their baseline? So it's that human factor that really drew me into orthotics and prosthetics initially. And then once I got into the field, I realized that there's this whole other realm to it. It's the fabrication. It's the material science. It's the physics behind these devices work that really kept me in the field of orthotics and prosthetics. So I think that that was kind of a roundabout way of answering your question, but I hope I touched all of those points that you were looking to have addressed. Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle Absolutely. And what fascinating experiences to have just out of undergrad. Dr. Kyle Leister Absolutely. Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle Orthotics and prosthetics is such a specialized field. For those who aren't familiar, can you explain what these professionals do and why their work is so important? Dr. Kyle Leister Yeah, absolutely. And I think the best way to sort of start out this discussion is providing some sort of an operational definition for what is an orthosis versus what is a prosthesis. And that'll sort of set the stage. So in the practice of orthotics, we are really designing devices, whether they're custom or off-the-shelf or custom fit to the patient, that are really designed in order to supplement a weakened or injured or a deformed body segment. So the key word is that the body segment is still there. That differs from prosthetics, where we're trying to craft a custom device in order to replace a missing or a deficient limb. So that's the big distinguishing factor. We use similar biomechanical principles to guide our decisions, both in orthotics and prosthetics. But really the difference lies in is the limb there and ju

    28 min

  6. 05/07/2025

    Episode 28: Dr. Christy Lawson, trauma surgeon and ETSU professor, shares how mentorship and a deep commitment to serving others shape her approach to teaching.

    In this inspiring episode of Why I Teach, Dr. Christy Lawson, a trauma, critical care, and acute care surgeon at ETSU’s Quillen College of Medicine, reflects on her journey from a rural community in Georgia to the operating room and classroom. Blending stories of family, mentorship, and personal growth, Dr. Lawson reveals how formative experiences—from learning through storytelling with her grandfather to assisting in surgery during a mission trip in Honduras—ignited her passion for medicine and teaching. She discusses the emotional complexities of surgical training, the power of individualized mentorship, and the importance of nurturing students as whole people. ETSU Quillen College of Medicine: https://www.etsu.edu/com/ ETSU Health: www.etsuhealth.org ETSU Department of Surgery: https://www.etsu.edu/com/surgery/ ETSU Great Lecture Series: https://www.etsu.edu/etsu-news/2025/01-january/great-lectures-feature-handy-herrmann-lawson.php   Transcript:  Dr. Christy Lawson Just knowing people is one of the most important parts of teaching. When you know them as an individual, you can help them tap into the things that renew them. Provost Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle Hi, I'm Kimberly McCorkle, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at East Tennessee State University. From the moment I arrived on this campus, I have been inspired by our faculty, their passion for what they do, their belief in the power of higher education, and the way they are transforming the lives of their students. This podcast is dedicated to them, our incredible faculty at ETSU. Hear their stories as they tell us "Why I Teach." In this episode, we will talk with Dr. Christy Lawson. Dr. Lawson is a trauma, critical care, and acute care surgeon and professor of surgery at ETSU Quillen College of Medicine. She was born in Ringgold, Georgia, and grew up learning the values of faith, integrity, hard work, drive, passion, and service to others from her family. Her mother went back to nursing school when she was in high school, and she remembers doing her homework during night school anatomy classes. This influence, a few key teachers, and a strategically placed surgical mission project in Honduras inspired her to work hard and open the horizon of medical school. Dr. Lawson obtained her college degree at Berry College, and then attended the Medical College of Georgia before landing in surgical residency at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. She trained there for residency and fellowship, and spent the first several years of her surgical practice there prior to moving to Johnson City and finding her home at ETSU in 2018. She was recently part of the ETSU Great Lecture Series, which is a celebration of our amazing faculty who have recently been promoted to full professor. Her lecture was inspirational, and I really look forward to my conversation with her today. Enjoy the show! Dr. Lawson, welcome to the show. I start my podcast with the same question for every guest. Take me back to your first day of teaching at ETSU as a faculty member. Looking back on that day, what's one piece of advice that you would have given yourself? Dr. Christy Lawson That first day was so different than anything that I'd really experienced before. And I was nervous because I'd never really left the place that I trained. And I think I would have told myself to just be myself and to not compare, because I think that was the hardest part for me, was coming in, not knowing what to expect and sort of comparing it to what I had done in the past. The students are different. The environment was different. The patients were different. The people that I worked with were different. And so I think that would have probably been what I would have told myself. Just take a breath. Don't compare and be yourself. Provost Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle Yeah. Great advice. Let's start with your story. You grew up in Ringgold, Georgia, with a powerful example of service in your family. Can you share how those early experiences shaped your decision to pursue medicine and ultimately teaching? Dr. Christy Lawson Actually, teaching came first before medicine. I grew up in a very rural farm community. My grandfather had cattle. I was sent to dig post holes for punishment. So that's kind of how I grew up. My grandfather was my first teacher. I remember walking with him through the farm and he was a great oral storyteller. And I don't think I identified storytelling as teaching then, but it was a way that he kind of would talk through things with us. He would teach us how to do things. He would teach us the names of livestock, how to take care of them, the names of the trees that we saw. And over the course of years, just walking with my grandfather through the farm and doing hard work with him, I learned that storytelling was teaching in that I love knowledge. And so honestly, that was really where it started for me. In high school, I had some fantastic teachers who were really able to see my potential, because while I loved knowledge, I didn't love school, and they saw that I was sort of floundering, and that I would read paperbacks under my desk. And I had a chemistry teacher in particular, who was just excellent at seeing the potential in individual students and pulling it out of the individual. And it wasn't this cookie cutter, "This is what you have to learn." And that really hit home for me -- that individualized learning. And so from that point forward, I just wanted to learn. And so I went to school pursuing zoology. I love being outside and I love my love of trees and flowers and plants and animals and living things came from my grandfather, and found myself in science classes. And then my mom wanted me to have a career that actually had an income, because I was going to do grant writing and research on Steller sea lions. And she said, "You know, how about you go with me to Honduras and learn some things about surgery or medicine?" And so I went with them on a surgical trip, and I was a first assist in surgery in San Pedro Sula, with a surgeon who actually graduated from Quillen and did his residency here at ETSU. And then I was hooked. I was like, "I can do this forever. This is really what I could do with my life." And that's kind of how I found my way into medicine -- sort of like an afterthought. Provost Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle That's great. How old were you when you went to Honduras? Dr. Christy Lawson I was 19. So I was a junior in college, and one of my roommates had been working on med school applications, and it wasn't until after that trip that I thought maybe I could do this. And fortunately, all the prereqs that science had given me positioned me well for med school. All I had to do is take physics. Provost Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle Oh, that's all? Dr. Christy Lawson That's all. It almost killed the career dreams, right? Provost Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle Thank you. You were recently featured in the ETSU Great Lecture Series where you talked about the power of mentorship. Will you share with us some of those powerful mentorship moments you've experienced throughout your career, either as the mentor or the mentee? Dr. Christy Lawson There are just so many of these. This is really what compels me the most about teaching is the relationships that you get to develop, both with the people who teach you, as well as the people that you teach. My greatest surgical mentor was my program director and chairman when I was a resident, Mitch Goldman. And he was one of those teachers, too, that could see you as an individual and know what it took to motivate you. And I know I had a trouble with confidence. And so he had this unique way of sort of sitting back in the background and letting me do things, and then would insert himself when he knew that I needed help. But he always watched, and he was always there. And so just having that support in the background, knowing that he believed in me, that mattered to me so much, and that really helped me build the confidence that I needed to be a good surgeon. I remember on a Saturday he was busy, he was doing paperwork, I was running around seeing patients, and I didn't know the answer to a question. And rather than reprimand me, like so many of my other faculty did, he called me to his office and I thought, "Well, this is it. I'm about to get fired." And I go up there and he sat me down and he opened a textbook, and he shared with me his knowledge of what I had gotten wrong, and he taught me how to think about it in a different way. And I will never forget that day. It was Saturday at like 2:00 in the afternoon. And at first, I was thinking about how busy I was and how much I had left to do. But him taking that 15 minutes out of his day to teach me was really impactful. And then one of my students – this was probably my favorite mentee moment -- she was a resident, and she came in, very young. She was younger than everybody else, so it was a little bit like a fish out of water. And so we sort of bonded over that. And she became a really good friend over the course of her training; went into trauma and critical care; left UT and went to UT Southwestern, where she did fellowship; and then one of my current residents, who's about to graduate, did an elective with her in practice. And I have this picture of me and her -- her name is Sneha Bhat -- I have a picture of us operating doing an abdominal wall reconstruction together. And then 10 years later, she sends me a picture of her doing the same operation with my current resident. So for me, that was just a really neat, full-circle moment. Provost Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle Yeah. Well, speaking of that, I thought one of the most powerful parts of you the day you were delivering the lecture was having some of your mentors in the room. Dr. Christy Lawson Yeah. For me as well. It was really neat to see that they came to hear me speak. And that,

    18 min
  7. Episode 27: Dr. Flo Weierbach discusses research on caregiver health, challenges of rural health care, and the importance of interprofessional education for nurses

    04/11/2025

    Episode 27: Dr. Flo Weierbach discusses research on caregiver health, challenges of rural health care, and the importance of interprofessional education for nurses

    In this episode of “Why I Teach,” Dr. Flo Weierbach, a seasoned nurse and professor at East Tennessee State University’s College of Nursing, talks with Provost Kimberly D. McCorkle about her journey from providing direct care to teaching the next generation of nurses. With over 40 years of experience, Dr. Weierbach discusses her research on caregiver health, the challenges of rural health care, and the importance of interprofessional education for nurses. She also provides a snapshot of her experience with the Nurse Narratives Initiative. Transcript:  Dr. Flo Weierbach So when I think about what's most important that I want my students to learn is: how to be kind, how to share, how to listen, and how to meet people where they're at. Provost Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle Hi, I'm Kimberly McCorkle, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at East Tennessee State University. From the moment I arrived on this campus, I have been inspired by our faculty, their passion for what they do, their belief in the power of higher education, and the way they are transforming the lives of their students. This podcast is dedicated to them, our incredible faculty at ETSU. Hear their stories as they tell us "Why I Teach." In this episode, we will talk with Doctor Flo Weierbach. Dr. Weierbach is a Registered Nurse and professor at East Tennessee State University's College of Nursing. She has over 40 years of nursing experience in providing direct care to individuals and their families in community settings. She has served as the nurse on multiple interprofessional health care teams and has conducted research focused on caregiver health. Upon completion of her Ph.D., she completed a one-year postdoctoral fellowship focusing on rural communities and chronic health conditions of rural residents at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Additionally, she was a Rural Health Fellow from 2012 through 2013 for the National Rural Health Association, a member of the American Nurses Association Public Health Scope and Standards Workgroup, and as the founding president of the Rural Nurse Organization Appalachian Region Tri-State Chapter. Enjoy the show. Dr. Weierbach, welcome to the show. I start my podcast with the same question for every guest. Take me back to your first day of teaching at ETSU as a faculty member, and looking back on that day, what is one piece of advice that you would have given yourself? Dr. Flo Weierbach I think the biggest thing I would say is that I need to relax. When I first entered the building, it was hard to find my office, and I was like, "Where is this?" It’s not what I remembered. And the first day I was in the classroom, I left my jacket in the classroom. So I would say, relax. Provost Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle   Yes, always great advice. You've had an extensive career in nursing with over 40 years of experience. What first drew you to the field, and how has that passion for nursing evolved over the years? Dr. Flo Weierbach My mother was a nurse, and she always wanted me to be a nurse. I didn't want to be a nurse, but I was working in a nursing home, going to the community college for a different degree, and recognized how important it was that I was there. And I knew I could do more as a nurse than as an aide. Over the years, I've evolved to discover and to care for people where they live. When I left the hospital after about eight years, after I got my bachelor's degree, I never looked back. I’ve been in the hospital since then, but very infrequently. So I would say really meeting people where they’re at. Provost Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle What inspired you to transition from direct care to teaching at ETSU College of Nursing? Dr. Flo Weierbach I, like I said before, when I was in the hospital, it was one at a time that I was providing care for. Then I moved into the community setting, and it was a family home. Then I further moved into our community action, and it was the community. What pushed me to teach was the ability to impact students so that they could provide care to individuals, families, and communities. Provost Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle Your research is focused on caregivers, especially those caring for individuals with chronic health conditions. What inspired you to dive into this area and how has this research impacted your teaching? Dr. Flo Weierbach When I first moved out of the hospital, I entered the home health arena and at that time it was not like it was now, and we provided care for everyone. And over that decade, things changed and it was harder to do it. When I was in my Ph.D. program, I was talking to a coworker from Home Health and she Dr. Flo Weierbach said to me, "Go find out what people need in the community." That led me to my dissertation work, which told me what I already knew, but I didn’t know I knew in that way. The caregivers were the most important thing. Yeah, but at the same time, what I saw was that caregivers would die, and we wouldn’t know what to do with their loved ones. Yeah, and that was the call. I hated the absolute most. And all the caregiving work at that time was around stress. So I decided to look at it differently and to look at it through health and through physiological, physical health and mental health. So that’s kind of like what led me to that. I developed a model. I tested the model. When I tested the model, we saw changes over time in both mental and physical health, which was a little unusual. We weren’t expecting that. How it's been able to impact my teaching is I teach a graduate-level theory concepts to our master students, and both with, and with our PhD students, that I met her. I've been able to show them how a model works and how to develop a model. So I think that's how I've been able to use that with my teaching. Provost Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle Well, I imagine this is an area of research that's interesting as well to students. Dr. Flo Weierbach I think it is. I think what's interesting, too, is demonstrating how important the community is, demonstrating how important it is that we address health holistically. And in addressing health holistically, we are looking at the entire person, and the model includes four components to health being attitudes and beliefs. So why are we doing it? Why are we providing care? Oh, it involves tasks that we do as caregivers, such as bathing or feeding or grocery shopping, and involves needs that we have as caregivers, such as help with the lawn, help with finances. And then it also addresses what we as caregivers do for ourselves to maintain healthy. Do we eat healthy? Do we exercise? And what was most surprising when I looked at it was how important spiritual care was. Provost Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle You were recently able to participate in a wonderful project called the Nurse Narratives Initiative. Will you please share what that project is all about? And a bit about your experience with it? So the Nurse Narratives project is, it's very interesting, I love it. It brings the arts into the classroom, and it also brings storytelling into the classroom and allows nurses to share our stories about memorable events that have happened throughout her career. I know for myself, when I was trying to decide on which story I, after 40 years, I have a lot of stories. It was challenging to think about it, and it was also challenging to think about what did I want to emphasize? So I finally settled on a story that was a home health story that involved very few visits, and I highlighted one aspect of a visit. But it really demonstrates what nurses bring to the table on the farm. It talked about skills. It talked about relationship building. It talked about what you can do with not a lot of resources. And it talked about a health outcome, both for the individual that I was providing care for and also for the husband. Yeah. Provost Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle So I understand that many of your colleagues in the college have also participated in the project. Dr. Flo Weierbach Yes. And that that was also lots of fun to be able to work with people that I've not worked with in the past. I really have enjoyed that aspect of it. Feel like I learned from them and they learned from me. And the team is just, the nurse narrative team is so good at getting us to focus on what was most important. Yes. I really enjoyed the first kind of presentation of that, and I'm looking forward to hearing more of the narratives. It's great. Provost Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle What type of work are you currently doing now at ETSU? Dr. Flo Weierbach So currently in addition to teaching... So I teach across programs. I teach undergraduate community health, which I just absolutely love. It's great fun to see students realize that there's health care outside of a hospital setting. I teach graduate master students and then Ph.D. students, but in addition to that, I've been doing some research work. We had a legislative meeting last August with the Tennessee Nurses Association, District Five. And out of that, a topic came up that the legislators were interested in and that was looking at workplace violence for nurses. Yeah, nasty topic for real, and at the same time, workplace well-being has become very important. So a bunch of us that are nursing faculty, we are working with the Tennessee Center for Nursing Advancement on a research project identifying well-being and workplace violence in the state, which is just phenomenal. We've contacted the legislators that are there. They are interested in it. They want to know what's going on. They can't do anything with policy until they know what's going on. So I'm really proud of that work. We have a Ph.D. student working with us. And then the other that I've been working with is the ALS clinic I've been working with. And the social worker and I have been working on a project looking at my health model for caregivers, us

    21 min
  8. Episode 26: Dr. Joe Moore on building a marching band from scratch and the ETSU Marching Bucs journey to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade

    02/04/2025

    Episode 26: Dr. Joe Moore on building a marching band from scratch and the ETSU Marching Bucs journey to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade

    In this episode, Provost Kimberly D. McCorkle talks with Dr. Joe Moore, Director of Athletics Bands, Associate Director of Bands, and Associate Professor of Music, about the incredible ETSU Marching Bucs. In 2014, Dr. Moore was tasked with revitalizing the Marching Bucs, which had been dissolved a decade earlier. Under his leadership, the band has grown in both size and prestige. In 2024, the marching band became the first collegiate marching band from Tennessee in over 60 years invited to march in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Transcript:  Dr. Joe Moore So, I actually began applying in 2019. 2020, they did not have the parade. It was virtual because of COVID, and then continued applying and, then got the word that we were selected. Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle Hi, I'm Kimberly McCorkle, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at East Tennessee State University. From the moment I arrived on this campus, I have been inspired by our faculty, their passion for what they do, their belief in the power of higher education, and the way they are transforming the lives of their students. This podcast is dedicated to them, our incredible faculty at ETSU. Hear their stories as they tell us “Why I Teach.” In this episode, we will talk with Dr. Joe Moore, Director of Athletic Bands, Associate Director of Bands, and Associate Professor of Music. Dr. Moore joined the ETSU faculty in 2014 and was tasked with revitalizing the Marching Bucs, which had been dissolved a decade earlier. Under Dr. Moore's leadership, the group has enjoyed explosive, exponential growth year-to-year, from a membership of 165 students in its 2015 debut season to well over 300 active members at present, continually and consecutively breaking the record for the largest band in ETSU history. Along with a surge in membership, the Marching Bucs have quickly established themselves as a premier marching arts organization with national recognition. The group was chosen to represent the state of Tennessee in the 2024 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, the first time a collegiate band from Tennessee has been featured in over 60 years. Enjoy the show. Dr. Moore, welcome to the show. I start my podcast with the same question for every guest. Take me back to your first day of teaching at ETSU as a faculty member and looking back on that day, what is one piece of advice you would have given yourself? Dr. Joe Moore   Thank you for having me. Yeah. I remember at first feeling a little overwhelmed with the idea of totally starting a program from scratch, basically because it had been dormant for so long. But what I would go back and tell myself now is enjoy the process, document the process. I think I was so fixated on the goal that I didn't always appreciate and enjoy the stepping stones along the way. You know, talking with students for the first time who were excited about the program starting back, and they were sharing their stories with me and things like that. So, I think just if I could go back and just soak all of that in rather than being fixated on creating a product. Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle Well, I have been looking forward to having you here. What a year. The ETSU Marching Bucs just had what I would call a historic season. I had the privilege of cheering on the band at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I know from an observer's perspective, it was exhilarating. So, I can only imagine what it must have been like to be leading your students along this journey. Will you share the story of how the band was selected to perform in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade? What was the process like for you and the students? Dr. Joe Moore Sure. I've watched the Macy's Parade as long as I can remember. Growing up, my family knew we couldn't have Thanksgiving dinner until after the parade was over. When I joined band, I thought, oh, that would be really nice to be in it someday. And then I became a band director, and I thought, oh, I would love to have a group in it someday. And so, it kind of progressed. And then I guess I had sort of put that idea on hold for a long time. And, then when I came to ETSU and I started enjoying the work ethic of the band and seeing the progress they were making and I just realized it was almost like a duh moment. It's like you should apply for Macy's. And so, I began applying for it. It's a very stringent process. There are, there are worldwide performance opportunities for bands. But usually if you've got the money then you can go. In fact, we were actually invited to come and march in the Lord Mayor's New Year's Day Parade in London. But I had knew I had applied for Macy's and so I was like, oh, I'm going to wait and see if Macy's works out. So I actually began applying in 2019. 2020, they did not have the parade. It was virtual because of COVID. And then continued applying and, then got the word that we were selected and, you know, we had to provide videos. We had to provide photographs with the band of, of each uniform, of each different section, letters of recommendation from people in the marching arts, a band resume. It was a pretty extensive process. And then in 2023, usually they had said they would let people know, you know, by February. And, you know, February came and went. And then it was March, and I just resigned myself. Okay, we haven't been chosen. And I got a message from the coordinator of the parade asking if I could do a Teams meeting with them. And I thought, I've messed something up on the application, or I left something out or something. And so we had the Teams meeting, and this was in early March, and, you know, it was a very pleasant meeting. And he just, he was asking things about the band and, and there were things I'd already answered on the application. So I was a little confused why he was asking those. And then he started talking about the band and, asked me about some things I included things like, you know, during, during the COVID shutdown, we actually had band members, we formed a whole ensemble to go play for the shift change at the hospital for the health care workers. You know, I talked about, you know, our engagement with our audiences, like, in the Christmas parade. You know, that we don't just, I mean, we're disciplined and we're regimented, but we let our kids interact with the audience because I think that's important. And, and he started talking about things like that, and, you know, how much that mattered. You know, the things beyond just the musical things. And then he started talking about, the videos that we had submitted, of our halftime shows. And he liked that our shows told a story, that they engaged the crowd so that the crowd wasn't always just spectators, but actually participants, you know, they were drawn in and, and he explained that, you know, a lot of people look at Herald Square as what Macy's Parade, the Macy's Parade is, but that's actually at the end of a two and a half mile parade route where millions of people are lining the streets. And he said it's very important to us that those people are entertained. And, you know, and he said, we like what you all do. And he offered the invitation for us to be in the 2024 parade. Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle Wow. So as the director, how did you prepare the band for such a high-profile performance? Dr. Joe Moore It was pretty intense. They, they knew the significance of it. We, and, of course, we don't practice during the summers or anything. So really, we could not start practicing until this past August when we came in at the end of the, end of the month for band camp. I knew that endurance would be something we would have to work on because you know, other than the Christmas parade, we don't really do parades. And, the Johnson City Parade And so, I knew endurance and, you know, and of course, you never know what the weather's going to be. I looked through literally decades of YouTube videos, and the weather was everything from sunny to almost blizzard conditions. So we knew we, we couldn't anticipate that. And I knew it would be a long time of playing along the parade route. They actually have a rule that, you know, you can only do percussion cadence in between songs for so long because they don't want the audience, you know, a little further down to not hear music. And so, I wrote our fall show a little more difficult music, a little more demand on their playing. We had more demand in the, in the marching to try to build that endurance up for the parade and also, thematically, I knew I wanted to do something that would make people happy, would make them smile. And so, I chose the theme of "Happy Together." And our show was all about happiness. And, actually, I wrote it so that the first minute and 15 seconds, which is what we're allotted of our show, is what we would do in Herald Square. Some of the kids initially had said, you know, oh, they didn't want to get burned out on it, but, but then I talked to, you know, other people and they say, they said, you know, towards Thanksgiving, you know, they're getting ready for finals and they're tired and to have to learn something brand new. It's not necessarily, you know, maybe the best idea. And, you know, I talked about it and as I mentioned, with my own self, wanted to make sure that when I started here that I was sort of in the moment. I wanted the kids to not be stressed about a performance, not be stressed about learning something new this year. I wanted them to be able to enjoy being on that street, looking up at the skyscrapers and seeing people cheering for them. I wanted them to be relaxed and confident enough that they could soak all that in. Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle So this was the performance that you gave during the football games throughout the fall semester leading up? Dr. Joe Moore Yes. Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle Yes. That's great. Dr. Moore, do you want to tell us about some of your

    24 min
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This podcast celebrates the faculty of East Tennessee State University by amplifying their stories. Faculty guests discuss why they are passionate about teaching and share what impact they hope their students will make on the world. The podcast is hosted by Dr. Kimberly D. McCorkle, ETSU Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs. Music for this podcast was composed by ETSU Professor Martin Walters.

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