Twenty-ninth Job of Bob - College Student - One last tip of the hat to an influential professor, and a thoughtful instructor: Coates and Roseberry - Jobs of Bob - book version

13 March 2013

Twenty-ninth Job of Bob - College Student - One last tip of the hat to an influential professor, and a thoughtful instructor: Coates and Roseberry - Jobs of Bob - book version

This entry was posted on 3/13/2013 1:31 AM and is filed under Jobs of Bob - book version, Jobs of Bob.

One Instructor at Madison Area Technical College and one professor at UW-Whitewater laid the seeds that sent me toward the Graduate study I eventually ended up in.  

Jim Roseberry was a social science teacher at Madison Area Technical College.  He had served in the military in the Vietnam War.  He had been plugging away as an instructor at MATC for a while. But, as luck would have it, while I was taking classes there in the mid to late 1990s, he crafted a new class.  With some consultation with a professor up at UW-Madison who taught a Vietnam War history class, Mr. Roseberry created a class about the Vietnam War history class at the MATC campus. Mr. Roseberry had also consulted a Buddhist monk he was fond of for guidance regarding that mostly Buddhist country.  Of course I took the class.  I even wrote an article about the new class for the school newspaper. 

Mr. Roseberry taught in a calm and logical matter; there was no hyperbole or drama in his lectures like that  occurred in the nation during the war era. We students were exposed to various elements of government, political, economical, military, and domestic issues from 1944 to 1980 - the timeline most connected with the Vietnam War.  We Americans remember the war as generally being connected with 1964 to 1973; but, of course there was a long incremental involvement  period, and then a tragic end time with all its consequences; hence, 1944 to 1980.

I was taken back to learn the intimate details of a war era I had grown up in and then served in the military in during.  This academic encounter with this era in my past, laid the ground work for a direction my studies would take me on into graduate school.  

I would eventually go to Vietnam three times in 2005 and 2006. I would also make one trip to the Los Angles, California, area to visit the huge Vietnamese community there that had sprung up in  Westminster and Garden Grove since our war in Vietnam. 

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Doctor Norma Coates taught everything Communications at UW-Whitewater.  I ran across her after I finished Criminal Justice and jumped over to graduate Communication.  I would need to come up to par for their program and took a couple undergrad Comm classes she taught.  Then later, I attended a couple graduate classes she taught as well. 

Professor Coates often wore jeans and a jean jacket to class.  She slightly let her affection for 1970s and 1980s pop culture glimmer through her presentation.  That is why I felt grateful to take classes in the era I did.  I remember the stuffy business suit professors from my brief encounter with college in the early 1970s.  By 2003 professors could let some of their own personality shine through. 

Once when doing what I thought was a rather routine research paper on Vietnam War movies and their effect on our culture, Professor Coates looked at my little offering and said rather matter-of-factly, "Bob, this is graduate level thesis material and ideas."  

The light bulb was turned on. 

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From the influence of these two teachers, I would eventually also end up in the war zones in Turkey and Iraq twice form 2006 to 2008 to do journalist work and collect information for thesis work.  My thesis theme would end up being how the Vietnamese in Southeast Asia and Los Angles, and the Kurds in Iraq define themselves by signs, symbols, music, and their pop culture, as opposed to some official written archives. 

Although I have revisited almost 20 other teachers and professors' teaching style in vignettes in this college chapter of my work experience, these two educators laid the seeds that launched me on to higher levels of projects, work, and education. 

Note: This blog "Jobs of Bob" - book version Category is a work in progress. The original vignettes are being edited for book form. Go to the Cooldadiomedia Web site and the Jobs of Bob Page for an ordered chronology of the book vignettes (chapters).