{"id":14344,"date":"2014-01-27T15:02:23","date_gmt":"2014-01-27T20:02:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/carleton.ca\/edc\/?p=14344"},"modified":"2021-08-13T10:20:14","modified_gmt":"2021-08-13T14:20:14","slug":"pre-med-ranch-hand-english-professor-award-winners-unexpected-journey-teaching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/tls\/2014\/pre-med-ranch-hand-english-professor-award-winners-unexpected-journey-teaching\/","title":{"rendered":"From pre-med to ranch hand to English professor: An award winner\u2019s unexpected journey to teaching – Spotlight on Adam Barrows"},"content":{"rendered":"

By: Samantha Wright Allen<\/em><\/p>\n

With an ER doctor as a brother and a medical researcher for a father, it\u2019s little wonder that at one time Adam Barrows was pre-med.<\/p>\n

But when a rejection letter set his world spinning, the young Barrows \u2013 who\u2019d only ever taken one English course in his undergrad \u2013 had no idea he\u2019d end up as an English professor at Carleton University.<\/p>\n

Barrows also had no idea teaching would become his \u201ccentral passion\u201d and that in 2012, more than 10 years into his career, he\u2019d win two awards: the New Faculty Excellence in Teaching Award and the FASS Teaching Achievement Award.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy heart wasn\u2019t in the work,\u201d says Barrows of his young self. \u201cIt was in the literary word and the spoken word.\u201d<\/p>\n

He read voraciously, scouring books like War and Peace when he should have being doing his biology homework. \u201cI finally realized maybe what I\u2019m doing in my spare time, I should be doing all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

But that awakening came after three years of life as a vagabond, which saw him traipse from Seattle to San Francisco working odd jobs. In Montana, Barrows says he and his wife worked as ranch hands, \u201cwhere I was trying to write my great American novel.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was American,\u201d Barrows laughs and soon admits he has two unpublished novels stuffed in his desk at home.<\/p>\n

Finding success at teaching was \u201can uphill climb.\u201d<\/p>\n

His first attempt as a teaching assistant was a disaster. He describes leading a hostile classroom that he was not trained to understand or direct.<\/p>\n

\u201cI virtually wept when I read the comments,\u201d says Barrows, remembering the \u201crock-bottom low evaluations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, more than a decade later, it\u2019s sky-high scores combined with an innovative teaching philosophy that\u2019s garnering him his awards.<\/p>\n

He remembers it all clicked when he guest-lectured Gulliver\u2019s Travels.<\/p>\n

\u201cI prepared for months and months and months,\u201d he says. \u201cI was nauseous for weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n

But when he stood before the 300-plus students, \u201cit was just magic,\u201d he says. \u201cI had that room in the palm of my hand. I could just see that I had a knack at this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barrows makes sure he has a knack for names, learning every single student in his sometimes 70-plus seminars. It\u2019s important, he says, that students know he cares that each person is present.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re all part of this community together,\u201d says Barrows, adding he thinks students respond to his endless enthusiasm for literature.<\/p>\n

And that excitement is born from constantly teaching new material, sometimes even books Barrows has never read before.<\/p>\n

He admits preparing new lectures each semester creates an intensive workload \u2013 but it\u2019s a personal survival technique.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s this massive ambitious personal goal that I\u2019ve set for myself and I\u2019ve set it to make sure that I never burn out on the thing that I love the most.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also what drives his creativity. Barrows has two research papers on the go, inspired by classroom discussions at Carleton.<\/p>\n

Barrows says he can\u2019t believe he gets to make a living reading and talking about books and he hopes his students take some of that joy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want them to look back at my class as an oasis of pleasure,\u201d says Barrows, adding he wants students to say: \u201cI feel like I understand something about the world and how it works, and beautiful language.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Samantha Wright Allen With an ER doctor as a brother and a medical researcher for a father, it\u2019s little wonder that at one time Adam Barrows was pre-med. But when a rejection letter set his world spinning, the young Barrows \u2013 who\u2019d only ever taken one English course in his undergrad \u2013 had no […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[445,377],"yoast_head":"\nFrom pre-med to ranch hand to English professor: An award winner\u2019s unexpected journey to teaching - 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