‘Nerdy’ professor wants to be reincarnated as her own cats
Utah Statesman: Where are you from?
Christy Glass: I grew up in Flint, Michigan.
US: Where did you go to school?
Glass: I went to college at the University of Michigan and I went to grad school at Yale University.
US: How long have you been at USU?
Glass: This is my second year.
US: What brought you to Utah State?
Glass: I wanted to live in the West. I’ve always wanted to live near the mountains and I wanted a job that really supported a good work-life balance which is increasingly hard to find in academic jobs.
US: What’s your specialty area?
Glass: I have a couple. Comparative social change, and gender and work. I work mostly in Eastern Europe.
US: What other classes do you teach?
Glass: I teach the Sociology of Gender, Intro to Sociology and Sociology of Work and Organizations. Those are my only undergraduate classes, the other classes are graduate classes.
US: What are your favorite and least favorite things about Utah?
Glass: My most favorite is just the beauty. I think this is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. My least favorite thing about Utah … hmmm … it’s too far from home.
US: What’s your funniest or favorite teaching moment you’ve had here at Utah State?
Glass: Oh, I’ve made such an enormous fool of myself so many times. Gosh there’s so many. Usually where I’m the butt of the joke. Last semester in the gender class I completely fell on my face in front of the whole class. That was pretty funny. Especially for the other students -much less funny for the professor. And then, ya know, I got up, tried to make some stupid joke about it … and I knew it was inevitable. I’m the clumsiest person.
US: What’s you’re biggest pet peeve?
Glass: I cannot stand stupid arrogant people. In other words, people who think they know everything but really know nothing. That sounds kind of mean though. Maybe the politically correct thing is students who don’t do the reading.
US: What’s your favorite and least favorite foods?
Glass: Favorite food in Cache Valley is Happy Sushi. Well actually it’s tied. Happy Sushi tied with the tacos at La Ranchera. Least favorite food – there’s no good pizza around here, so I would say the local pizza.
US: You don’t like the Firehouse? That’s everyone’s favorite pizza!
Glass: Well I’m from the East Coast where it’s really thin, thin crust, like old school pizzerias. We’ve been searching for one; we miss that kind of pizza.
US: What are some things you like to do in your spare time?
Glass: I read a ton. I read way too much for pleasure. I play basketball; I watch a lot of basketball. I watch movies.
US: As a sociologist, when you read books and watch movies, are you always analyzing and picking out things?
Glass: It’s a curse. It’s a blessing and a curse. But it’s true, I can’t watch films or TV or read the paper or read books without these themes coming out at me constantly. In fact what I’m thinking about doing is taking little excerpts from books I read or from films and just using the excerpts in class.
US: If you could describe yourself in one word, what would you use?
Glass: Nerd. I would say most professors are enormous nerds. We love to sit around, read books and talk about them. Our whole lives kind of revolve around curiosity, learning more about the world, thinking new ways to explain social phenomenon. It’s kind of nerdy!
US: Tell me some of your little quirks, or funny things that you do.
Glass: When I get really excited I tend to shout.
US: If you could be any animal, what would you be and why?
Glass: The greatest animal to be would be a cat. Because they just get to do whatever they want to do, and people just think it’s their personality. They have a great scam. My cats have a great life. I want to be reincarnated as my cats.
US: Do you have an embarrassing moment?
Glass: I was coming up with an example in class about how a prince would invade another kingdom and bring the booty back to his own kingdom. But you know sometimes you emphasize the wrong word in a sentence, and I super-emphasized “booty” so it came out really loud and with a lot of emphasis and gusto. In my mind I was like, “um, I just said booty really loud.” And I looked up and a couple of the students were starting to giggle and suddenly the class erupted, and it became one of those moments where I couldn’t stop laughing. That was pretty embarrassing.
US: Do you have a dream job, or dream place to work?
Glass: I think this is my dream job. It’s a great department with lots of young, energetic faculty. It’s a great place to work because the department really supports having a work-life balance that I think is rare in other places. I love my colleagues, I love the work that I’m doing, I really love teaching here. So I think this is my dream job – of course when I get tenure it will be an even more dream job. -kathrynkemp@cc.usu.edu