Fresh faced faculty

Q: What’s a favorite memory you have? A: “My grandma taught me to play the violin during my childhood. Thinking about my weekly lessons with her gives me a happy, warm feeling.”

Q: What is a dream job of yours outside of working in education? A: “If I got to work wherever I wanted it would be awesome to work in a monkey sanctuary where I’m working with primates.”

Q: What is a fact about you students wouldn’t know? A: “I’m a cyclist. I really like biking... I’ve done RAGBRAI, and I did part of Jingle Cross.”

Q: What is a hidden talent you have? A: “I can sew electronics and make e-textiles... it’s called soft circuitry.”

Q: What is next on your ‘to watch’ list? A: “I’m looking forward to the next series of ‘The Crown,’ I like that show. I’m really looking forward to the next series of ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.’ [My daughter] Lucy [Polyak ‘19] and I watch that one together, its great. It’s on Amazon Prime.”

Q: Do you have a hidden talent or something about you students wouldn’t know? A: “I was a Scottish Highlander in college and that was at the same time that the first President Bush was elected president. I marched in the inaugural parade in Washington DC and I carried the Iowa flag.”

Q: When did you know you wanted to go into education? A: “It was my senior year of college, and I was failing out of college. I took a semester off, or dropped out rather,and I went traveling on a road trip through the western United States. And when I was in Portland, Oregon one night, it dawned on me. I started talking about teaching to someone I had met. I got really fired up about it, and...

Q: What was your least favorite class in high school? A: “Art. I hate to draw. I’m very bad at drawing. I was good at math, science and sports, but art was my least favorite. I was looking at my friends and I could tell how they were drawing flowers and people. But my flowers were sticks and my people were also sticks with circles. They were shapes instead of people.”

Q: What is your hidden talent? A: “I occasionally sing with a jazz band called the Sugar Daddies based out of Cedar Falls. I’ve sung pretty regularly with them for about eight years.”

Q: What is a rule you broke in high school? A: “A fashion rule? I plucked my eyebrows too much.”