Here is the second round of #GetToKnowYourProfs! We hope you’ve enjoyed learning more about our faculty!
Michael Brooks
How long have you been at Hope? I graduated from Hope in 2013 and began teaching here last autumn (2019).
Favorite Subject to teach? My favorite class to teach is Outdoor Writing, an ENGL 113 class thematically centered around how people and places shape one another.
Favorite Movie? I enjoy the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Favorite Book? That’s a tie between John Steinbeck’s East of Eden and David James Duncan’s The Brothers K.
Favorite Hobbies? I enjoy rock-climbing, hiking, and anything else I can do outdoors. I also make music in my spare time. You can check some of it out on my YouTube channel.
Ernest Cole
How long have you been at Hope? 12 years.
Favorite Subject to teach? Global literature, especially Postcolonial literature
Favorite Movie? Cry Freedom & Sarafina (Can’t decide between the two)
Favorite Book? Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Favorite Hobbies? Watching the English Premier League.
Susanne Davis
How long have you been at Hope? Just over 1 year.
Favorite Subject to teach? Creative Writing, fiction of all stripes.
Favorite Movie? Second Hand Lions. I watch it once a year with my family and we eat hot fudge sundaes for our meal as we watch!
Favorite Book? I love so many books I can’t choose.
Favorite Hobbies? I have been told by my family I need more hobbies to help me take a break from working. I love to run, I love to make chocolate chip cookies for my students, (I made so many for my kids they won’t touch them now), I love dancing, and let’s see– is laughing a hobby? I love to laugh. And I love sailing!
Curtis Gruenler
How long have you been at Hope? Since fall 1997.
Favorite Subject to teach? This is tough, but I especially enjoy the literary theory course because students bring up such a wide variety of texts for us to look at through different theoretical lenses. It always expands my lists of books to read, films and TV shows to watch, music to hear….
Favorite Movie? I’m a big fan of Wings of Desire by director Wim Wenders, which I just noticed is currently streaming on Amazon.
Favorite Book? The Lord of the Rings
Favorite Hobbies? Playing frisbee, preferably at the beach; board games; growing perennials; walking, preferably among trees; cycling. And of course reading and writing: it’s an occupational hazard for an English professor that work and hobby tend to blend into each other.
Alex Mouw
How long have you been at Hope? I graduated from Hope in 2014, returned to teach for the 2017-18 academic year, and now I’m teaching a section of English 113. It’s good to be back again (again)!
Favorite Subject to teach? I love teaching in the cultural heritage program. The blend of subjects and students’ interests makes it a unique challenge and a uniquely rewarding liberal arts experience.
Favorite Movie? Pan’s Labyrinth.
Favorite Book? Collected Poems of Marianne Moore. She’s my hero.
Favorite Hobbies? I like to run, and my wife and I have been successfully growing a few herbs on our porch in Saint Louis. It’s not a lot to brag about, but we take what we can in the pandemic, right? These days our dog is our biggest hobby—she wishes she could have the house to herself again.
Mike Owens
How long have you been at Hope? I’ve been at Hope for just over three years.
Favorite Subject to teach? I really enjoy both of the two major categories of classes that I teach: American literature and composition / business writing.
Favorite Movie? Among my favorites (and I’m showing my age here) are Bonnie and Clyde, Animal House, Apocalypse Now, and Dustin Hoffman’s staged for television version of Death of a Salesman.
Favorite Book? I don’t really have a very favorite, but here are four great ones: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner, The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, and White Noise by Don DeLillo.
Favorite Hobbies? Biking, running, day hiking, kayaking
Regan Postma-Montaño
How long have you been at Hope? I began teaching English and Spanish at Hope in the fall of 2015. Before that I directed the Step Up mentoring program housed on campus at Hope!
Favorite Subject to teach? Anything on peace and justice
Favorite Movie? Cinema Libertad (2009, directed by Arturo Menéndez).
Favorite Book? Piecing Me Together by Renée Watson (my favorite summer 2020 read)
Favorite Hobbies? Traveling, baking, watching puppy videos on YouTube.
Emily Tucker
How long have you been at Hope? This is my second year.
Favorite Subject to teach? I love to teach 19th-century literature. I especially enjoy British novels and theater from this era, but it’s a fascinating century throughout the world.
Favorite Movie? Toy Story 3
Favorite Book? Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
Favorite Hobbies? Singing, walking, learning about the histories of theater and television.
Kathleen Verduin
How long have you been at Hope? I’ve been at Hope since 1978; I came for what was supposed to be a temporary position. But I had also been a Hope student, so it was already a homecoming.
Favorite Subject to teach? American literature I and II.
Favorite Movie? Moby-Dick, of course.
Favorite Book? Well, I love the old black and white Hitchcock movies: Strangers on a Train, Shadow of a Doubt, but especially the eerie Rebecca, with Joan Fontaine and Lawrence Olivier…the Godfather films are great too.
Favorite Hobbies? Who has time? But I still do needlepoint once in a while…