Her Campus has decided to feature different professor’s around campus that everyone should try to take. Today’s professor is Reverend Tom Sullivan, who is also the director of Spiritual Life on Campus.
Rev. Sullivan has been working at Lasell six years, but has been teaching for over thirty five years. He taught high school for three years, and since than has taught at UMass, UNH, Babson, BU, Roger Williams, Lasell, and the Northeastern MBA program online. He says his favorite thing about teaching is when a student realizes that they can get a complicated or difficult idea. He also loves having lively debates and discussions in class, and enjoys empowering students to think more clearly about things that are important.
Reverend Sullivan found his inspiration for teaching from a philosophy professor in college, who said to him, “I have always believed that if people only thought more clearly, there would be less killing and destruction in the world. And fewer problems, in general.” Rev. Sullivan says that every day when he reads the news, his inspiration is refreshed, and he remembers just why teaching is so important.
Rev. Sullivan is not only a teacher in the classroom, he also spends a lot of time helping students learn outside the classroom as well. He has been the supervisor for four service learning trips to Uganda, one alternate spring break, and is leading the service learning trip to Tanzania this May. While at Babson, he led eight trips to South Africa, one to Uganda, and one to Sri Lanka, and advised a trip to el Salvador while at Roger Williams. His favorite thing about these trips is the feeling that students have when they return. He explains how students come home seeing the world differently, with more humility about their own place in the world and admiration for people in other cultures. He also enjoys seeing the sense of accomplishment that they gain from having taken on a tough challenge that they were able to meet.
Reverend Tom Sullivan is an amazing teacher in and outside the classroom, whose passion for learning and true belief in what he’s doing inspires his students to expand their views on the world. If you get an chance to take his class, make sure that you do! Your understanding of the world and confidence in yourself will be increased. He truly believes in his students, and hopes that when they leave Lasell, that they realize they are “smarter than they have given themselves credit for, and capable of more than they have dreamed possible, if only they will accept the challenge of the hard work of thinking”.