Donut

LA Rotunda installation

Installed May 2022

Overview

“The LA Rotunda is a gathering place for eight faculties and for the students who take classes there. Different from the library, knowledge comes from the people who teach in these environments. Something that I have learned while working in the library was the importance of talking with people who use the space. Chatting with the librarians, I deepened my understanding of the importance of the library. Through Donut, I got to understand why the faculties teach. By connecting with each teacher and gathering their statements, I was able to display hidden information that might not have been tangible in the first place. Using energetic see-through green banners and soft, stretchy light pink fabric that contains the teachers’ statements, they wake up the stagnant and tired space. An abstracted table in the middle with an interactive element that allows the students to reflect on what they are excited to do in class that hopefully creates a stronger sense of purpose. Shared with everyone else to create walls like those love lock bridges.”

Big thank you to the faculties who took their time and wrote a personal statement for the project, and thank you Patty for helping me on installation day!!!

Reflection with a lazy ending

    It has been almost two months since the completion of the project and it is only now that I decide to sit down and write about it. I don’t know why I didn’t write when the glowing passion was still there, but here I am.

    In all honesty, different from the library project, this project still leaves a lingering good taste in my mind. Perhaps it is because of the similar tingling feeling that Donut gives compared to Fite, where both are so random, and possess this unpredictability from human elements that are so very rewarding when the interaction starts coming in, and you realize that people are actually seeing this, and participating with it. 

    That feeling when I arrive on Monday(after months of planning and researching, a month of intensively working on completing, building a table for the first time with a tad too many elements in a week, and almost 5 hours of installation on a Sunday), to see people interacting with the project, checking it out, a stagnant space void of identity, a place almost acting like a gas station, suddenly becoming this place full of characteristics and purpose, was exhilarating. 

    To put a cherry on top of the cake, seeing people picking up a donut, following the interaction prompt, wrapping the donut, and faculties in the rotunda telling me how they see students in class and wrapping was accomplishing, to say the least.

    However, what I am the proudest of is being able to collect statements on why the faculties in the rotunda teach and why they continue to teach. During the project, what I realized from doing the library, is the importance of talking with the people who use these spaces. Stepping out of my usual routine, I decidedly talk to the eight faculties who have classes there to gain a better understanding of the environment that I will be working in. 

    I learned a lot, with a bonus fun fact that the rotunda used to be a library: 

Mr. Kamrow

I always wanted to be a history teacher. Well, I wanted to play in the NFL. When I realized that wasn’t going to happen, I decided to major in pre-med and history. All the doctors I spoke with complained about their profession, all the teachers said how much they loved theirs. I am well and truly in their camp; I LOVE teaching, and consider myself very lucky!

Ms. Hoiles

    I came to be a teacher because I truly could never imagine doing anything else. Every passion I’ve held in life—growing plants, making art, reading books, writing words—has always manifested in community. (Writing club? Collaborative literary magazine? Teach-in? YES.) I continue to teach because I’m a pragmatic optimist. People matter, curiosity matters, and the communities I help form around those values lay the groundwork for a world I believe to be possible.

Ms. Mosher

I was inspired to become a teacher by the amazing ones that I had in middle school who encouraged curiosity and collaboration. I enjoy teaching history because I love stories and at the heart of it, history is simply stories. It is important to me to include voices and stories that have been systematically excluded from history. When we include many perspectives we get a more honest version of history and this allows us to better understand our world.

Ms. Adams

My passion for learning about different languages and cultures originated in high school; however, my desire to teach began while serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador.  I continue to teach today because I love contributing to the education of students who find their passion and motivation through learning.

Dr. Dohm

    Teaching is a calling. I have always loved the school setting since I was a child so becoming a teacher was a natural career choice for me.

Supporting and inspiring students are the best parts of teaching.  Every day is a new day so it is never boring! I have taken great pride in watching many of my students become successful adults with flourishing careers.

Mr. Tehja

If you are lucky, you can see it happening in real-time, but you have to pay very close attention. Perhaps it’s in the facial muscles contorting and then softening, a subtle raising of the eyebrows, or the beginnings of a smile – telltale signs that bely a sudden spark of understanding, and a problem that felt confusing or even impossible some moments before, is now clear as day. I teach because I love seeing that process, and it gives me joy to know that sometimes I played a small part in it.

Ms. Gaede

Frankly, I had no particular love for school, no driving desire to inspire anyone, and no ambition to pursue anything that would require getting up early five days a week. I was the epitome of studied nonchalance. The nuns prayed hard for me.

James Zeller, S.J., entered my rather rudderless existence when I was 17. We met on a train headed from Detroit to Chicago. I cringed when I saw the Roman collar heading down the aisle: the only seat left was directly across from mine. My plans for a fun trip didn’t include chatting it up with a priest. That chance encounter blossomed into a mentorship that lasted until his death several years ago. His example as a scholar, his gift for coaxing the best from others, and his commitment to young people led me to choose the path of a teacher. I hoped to help my students grow in the same way he had guided me.  

Ms. Merwin

My mother was a teacher when I was in preschool.

She did not recommend the profession.

Because of this, I had never even thought about teaching as a career.  I majored in Economics in college and my first job out of college was as a management trainee at an international supply firm headquartered in Chicago.  Over the years, I went on to get my MBA and became a regional director at the company in charge of marketing, sales and … the management trainee program.  

It was during this time that I noticed that almost all of the newly hired management trainees (most were just out of college) stated that they either “can’t write,” or “can’t do math.”  Much to their dismay, they would soon learn that they needed to be proficient at both of these in order to succeed at their job.  Something that I found absolutely fascinating was that all of these people could actually write and ‘do math’ just fine.  So why did they think they couldn’t???

And so my attraction to education….

                and maybe what it doesn’t get right sometimes…

                                            was born.

Ending note…