(Joey, Emily, and fellow LC friend John)
We became friends the first day of LCs and have been best friends ever since, and we feel that we owe a portion of our friendship to our absolutely incredible LC teacher!
We interviewed Jeffrey Dirk Wilson, a staff member here at the Catholic University of America, who teaches a number of undergrad philosophy courses. We had him second semester, freshman year for Philosophy of the Modern Mind, after we essentially fired our first semester Classical Mind philosophy teacher. Wilson actually left an honors course that he was teaching first semester to come teach our class, which we were very thankful for! This was the only semester he ever taught Learning Community philosophy courses to a regular freshman class. What I mean by this is that in the past and currently today Professor Wilson teaches students, which he refers to as the “leftovers”, these same courses that we took as freshman students. This includes a lot of international students, students who have failed these courses in the past, and students who have somehow gotten away with not taking these classes right away when they arrived here. One thing he said he noticed was the wide range of people in our class, and the different levels of motivation. He also said when he starts teaching a class he begins at zero; there is no history and no expectations walking in. With us, coming into a class where the students successfully eliminated their last teacher, he said he felt like he was starting from a negative standpoint, like he had ground to make up and gain our trust.
Joey, Emily, and fellow LC friend Steve
Out of all the classes that he teaches here, he says that Philosophy of Art is the most fun (makes sense) and Philosophy of Knowledge is has the most interesting content. Neither of these are the philosophy courses we take during our freshman year LCs. Wilson said that one thing he carries with every philosophy class he teaches is human formation. He doesn’t just teach the philosophy course so that the student can get an A on the test, he teaches to fulfill the student as a human being and help them better their own lives. He uses his son Nick, who had always struggled a bit in school, as an example of how he envisions his entire classroom when he walks in on the first day. He attempts to teach as if he was teaching an entire room of “Nicks,” which we both found funny and interesting, and probably very wise. He said his one favorite memory of our class, or one that he always found comical, was this one student who came late every class and banged on the window of the basement classroom (we were in in Regan Hall). The door was locked since we were in a freshman girls dorm. Wilson said that the whole environment and circumstances surrounding it was just hilarious.
Steve, Emily, and Joey
Professor Wilson’s position was created specifically for him by the First Year Experience/Learning Community program. He has been a teacher here at CUA for 7 years, and was a minister prior to that for 27 years. He also got his PhD at Catholic in Philosophy later in life. He said he would gladly teach LCs again if the opportunity was presented to him. He thinks it’s beautiful that we have remained friends all 4 years and hopes that he has something to do with it through his method of teaching.
Some funny quotes from Professor Wilson:
“It’s better to be lucky than good.”
“I want everyone to feel sad on the last day of my class.”