Walking to my first class, I was so nervous I almost quit. I rushed through that initial lecture, terrified that any misstep would plunge me into the abyss of embarrassment. It took me a long time to learn that standing in front of a classroom doesn't have to feel lonely. The key, I realized thanks to years of student feedback, is building a community—finding ways to recognize each student as an individual and foster collaboration among them and with their instructor. As a literature teacher, I can offer specific support to those in the humanities, but my door is open to any colleague interested in classroom strategies, overcoming mentoring challenges, and, most importantly, discovering the joy of teaching for both themselves and their students.
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David Marno is associate professor in the English department, where he usually teaches Renaissance literature and occasionally courses in aesthetics, philosophy, and religion. Much of his work concentrates on the intersection between literature and religious practice in Renaissance literature and culture, in particular on the relationship between prayer, meditation, spiritual exercises, and poetry. Marno’s first book Death Be Not Proud: The Art of Holy Attention (Chicago, 2016) interprets John Donne's Holy Sonnets as exercises in attentiveness. He has published on religious and secular concepts of attention, on apocalypse as a literary and political figure, and on philosophy of history and comparative literature. Marno is also interested in questions of institutional history, especially the relationship between calling and bureaucracy. He currently works on the literature of falling asleep.