It is the first class of the semester for Dr. Theresa Smith’s students. As they file into the room they are greeted with smiles from the professor who is casually seated in a chair behind the desk. She is a shorter woman with shoulder length brown hair and a collared shirt. As the students take their seats, she hands out the syllabus and gives a brief overview of the Religion course that she will be teaching this semester. She then proceeds to do the traditional roll call, stopping on each student’s name to learn their face and have a quick, friendly chat. Throughout this, there are a lot of jokes. She is lighthearted, sarcastic, and smart. Everyone is laughing. Then her face turns grim, she becomes serious on a very deep level, and gives the lecture that she gives at the start of each semester for all her classes. “I will not tolerate cell phones in my classroom. If I catch you with your cell phone in this class you and your best friend, your phone, will be humiliated and asked to leave. If there is an emergency situation in which you need to have your phone accessible during class and you tell me, I will allow it.”
Her face brightens, “I’m not a complete monster.”
Then it darkens again. “But on an average basis, you are to have your phones off and away. You can separate yourself from them for the timeframe of this class.”
The students who have never had her before scramble for their phones with widened eyes of fear. The students who have taken her have already turned their cell phones off before taking their seats. After this speech, it’s back to class as usual with jokes, sarcasm, and wit. Her lectures and discussions are always interesting and she develops student followers like a rock band might attract groupies. While her students may enjoy taking her classes, she may actually believe in the students more than they believe in her.
“I love IUP students. Most of them are from working class backgrounds, working jobs through college, and trying to claim an education for themselves. The greatest barrier to them for gaining knowledge is ignorance and fear. But, if you can break through that, they’re extremely open to learning. And that could really have an impact on the world.” Dr. Theresa (Terri as her friends call her) Smith has been teaching in the Religious Studies Department for more than twenty-two years.
After completing her undergraduate studies at William and Mary, she lived in Scotland for a year to try divinity school. “Yeah, that didn’t work out. But it raised my awareness. While I was over there I met some radical feminists and they really made me think.”
[pagebreak]
When she returned to the States, she decided that she wanted her life to mean something so she began to work for the National Women’s Political Caucus, going door to door about feminist issues. Then she worked for a women’s center where she was hired to get poor and minority women involved. What she found was that women were worried about whether they could make enough to pay for heating bills, have a network of transportation, and shelters to protect them from abuse. This sparked an idea.
She decided to start a shelter for battered women. Coming at it from the feminist approach, it would be a shelter where women could help other women, sisters could help sisters. After obtaining funds from United Way, they opened their doors and she ran the shelter as the Director for two years. However, because they were receiving mainstream funding, they were eventually forced to change their concept to a family crisis center and it lost its feminist quality. Because of this and the sheer heartbreaking work, she decided to leave. Today the shelter still exists.
“So then I did what people do when they don’t know what to do; I went to grad school.”
She was accepted into Boston University’s graduate program and completed her doctoral thesis while she looked for a job.
“I was very lucky to get this job. At that time, there were only about two jobs in the entire country for a specialist in Native American Religions. But IUP hired me and I’ve been here ever since.”
Dr. Theresa Smith has published over a dozen scholarly articles and chapters, a book, and is finishing a new book that she hopes to have cross into mainstream success. Her area of expertise is Native North American studies and paganism in the British Isles. Her book which explores Native American myths of water monsters and thunderbirds was originally published in 1995 and received high acclaim from the scholarly community. Native American activist Winona LaDuke claimed that Dr. Smith’s book was one of her personal favorites. This book is being rereleased this year.
She has led an inspiring life and hopes to accomplish much more. But her first priority is teaching. There is an undoubted passion for it that she exudes. She genuinely believes that the most impact that she can have on the world is not through a scholarly article in a journal that is only going to be read by other people in her field. She believes that the true impact that she can make is in front of a classroom, opening students to the diversity in the world and showing them that different cultures and religions should be embraced and not feared. Ultimately, she teaches acceptance. Unless it comes to texting in her class. Then you should be afraid, be very afraid.
photo courtesy of Jess Danyi