She Really Cares About Your Education: Meet Mrs. Janet Beck

Hometown: Philadelphia, PA 

Teaches: freshman Seminar for the Student Support Service students

Colleges:East Carolina as an undergrad, UNCG Graduate school for counseling, Graduate school at ASU for English

 

Mrs. Beck is, hands down, the best professor I have had. I wanted to know more about her, and I wanted everyone else to know how amazing she is.

Mrs. Beck’s major was English because she has always enjoyed reading and writing. At the time, she wanted to be a high school English teacher. but she skipped straight to college.

Her family consists of her husband, Skip, whom she has been married to for 30 years. Skip teaches psychology here at App. Her son, James, teaches English in Taiwan and she is going to see him over Christmas break. Their family is completed by their very much loved dog.

Her mentors are Bruce Dick in the English department. He encouraged her to go to graduate school for English. He was on her thesis committee and encouraged her to turn it into a book (which she did). You may know her book, Creating the John Brown Legend. It was Dick that made her consider teaching because he was a great teacher. Watching his care and passion about his work really influenced her.

Another mentor was Dr. Marian Franklin at UNCG. She was in the counseling program. “The things she taught me about interacting with people made an impression on me,” said Mrs. Beck.  Franklin got her involved in being president of the counseling association and alumni association.

With all of her amazing accomplishments, she says that her biggest was being a mom to her son, James. She also considers being a caring, nurturing teacher as a big accomplishment, and of course writing her book because it was a lifelong dream.

Her novel, “Creating the John Brown Legend” started with an interest. Mrs. Beck has always been interested in people who made a difference in the world. She also always loved Henry Thoreau and learned about John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry to protest slavery through Thoreau’s writings. Everyone said he was a lunatic,yet Mrs. Beck admires how they changed the public opinion of their day, so she added to it as a thesis and made it into a book.

The thing she loves the most about being a teacher is the students. She says that working with college students, you get to be around people you enjoy and talk about things you like.

Outside of teaching, Mrs. Beck likes to travel, do community service, and hang out with family. She has been to Mexico, Canada, Puerto Rico, England, Ireland, France, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Turkey, Poland, and even lived in Germany for six months.

As busy as she is, she is currently working on another research project about Thoreau and how a clerk went on a one-man campaign to help establish Thoreau’s reputation.

Her best piece of advice to us as students is to “follow your passion. You will work 86,000 hours after grad. Might as well be something you love doing.”