HONORARY ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT
December 2014

Where did you receive your education, and how did that prepare you for a career teaching at Longwood?

I went to undergraduate school at a wee tiny school, very much like Longwood, in western Pennsylvania. It was named Indiana State College. That was back in 1964 when I graduated from there. I think that is part of the reason why I like Longwood so much; Longwood reminds me a lot of the undergraduate school I went to. Then I was in the army for 3 years, in the United States Army Medical Service Core. After that they said, “Do you want to get out of the Army?” and I said, “I think I do.” So I started the graduate school at the University of Connecticut, and I got a master’s degree in sociology. Then I went back and got a second master’s degree in anthropology. Then I got my Ph.D. in Anthropology and Archaeology from the University of Georgia in 1976.

How and when did you come about working at Longwood?

I graduated from University of Georgia in 1976, and my major professor got me a job teaching Anthropology at Georgia State University. Atlanta is about one hour away from the University of Georgia. I didn’t even have to have an interview; he had the job lined up for me. The first thing I saw was very discouraging. When I got to Atlanta, it was a big town and Georgia State University was an urban institution. There was no campus, and there were no trees.  There were only tall buildings.  One of them was called the Lawyer’s Title Building, and that is where my office was. I saw my students for one trimester, and then they would leave and I would never see them again. I didn’t like it. I was the only in Atlanta that hated Atlanta. I was not a city boy. I was an outcast; I was a misfit. About two days after my career began at Georgia State University, I started looking around for other jobs, and it took me two years. At the end of my first year, I saw an advertisement in a newspaper, The Chronicle of Higher Education. They had job ads, and there was one advertisement that read: “Wanted: Small college in rural Southside Virginia seeks an Anthropologist to begin a program in Anthropology.” And I thought, “That’s me!” I called immediately. They invited me for an interview on April 1^st… April’s Fool Day. I flew to Lynchburg on March 31^st, and on April Fool’s Day 1978 I had an interview. The next day they offered me the job.

So that is how I got to Longwood, because I was the only person in Atlanta, Georgia that didn’t like Atlanta or an urban university. I wanted to get to know my students.  That was 36 years ago, and I still like it today. I think I’m going to stay.

Where has been your favorite place to travel to or study abroad and why?

I’ve done field work in six different countries in West Africa, and two countries in East Africa. I’ve also done field work in England, Syria and in Jordan. My favorite place to do field work was actually in Syria. The reason that was my favorite place to do field work was that was where my mother was born. She came to the United States with her family as an immigrant, and I always wanted to see where I came from. That was in 1987. You couldn’t do field work in Syria now because of fighting and war, and I have never been back. 

What advice do you give students who are thinking about majoring in anthropology?

Well, first of all, I congratulate them on making a wondrously fine decision. I say that I’m glad they are now anthropology majors. Almost all of our majors transfer from another discipline because Anthropology is not taught in high school. We get students who are majoring in marketing, kinesiology, psychology, sociology, etc.; and I basically “steal” them when they are in the introductory anthropology course. Often, people do not know what they want to major in, so I try to make the course very interesting. In a class of about 32 students, I will have about 2 or 3 who will change their majors, which really upsets their parents, because usually they were majoring in something that made sense. I get a good many telephone calls from parents who ask really good questions about degrees in anthropology. It’s a lot of work to get an anthropology major; therefore, we try to take really good care of the students, because we don’t want to lose any of them. We are a tiny little department. We have 42 anthropology majors. We don’t want to lose any.

When students are asked about their favorite Longwood traditions, they typically say things like “Dr. Jordan’s Ghost Stories”. What is your favorite Longwood tradition?

You’re going to laugh! There are two things that I have done a long time since I’ve been in Farmville. I touch Joan of Arc’s hand. I try to do that every day, but some days I’m not here… some days I am at the archaeological site, some days it’s Christmas. I normally walk to work, and I come in the front door and normally say “Good Morning” to Dr. Jarman, whose picture is hanging on the wall in Ruffner, and I touch Joanie on the hands. I used to get in trouble for that. When the visual art center found out I was doing it, and that I was talking about doing it, they were very upset. But I never stopped. Now they have ways to re-do her knuckles, and they fix it about once per semester

As the keynote speaker at Convocation, you asked students about the most important thing that has happened to them at Longwood. As a professor, what is the most important thing that has happened to you at Longwood?

All those years, I went to convocation and never had my own Mortarboard. Now I have my own mortarboard; and it weighs 11 pounds. The president asked me to speak, and I thought, “What am I going to talk about?” What a joy it is to be a college professor? No one would want to hear that. I didn’t want to say the typical things because they are boring. Then I thought about what students would want to hear about, and I realized… Students like to hear about themselves. There is nothing more interesting than yourself. I made these little slips of paper, and then I asked students in my classes and around campus if they wouldn’t mind answering this question.

The most important thing that I have learned is that students are very delicate. They hurt real easily, and they’re tender. They are like delicate, little flowers, and you can’t kick them around unless you are interested in hurting them. You can’t be mean to them; you can’t be careless or thoughtless. You can’t snap at them, and you can’t bite their heads off. Usually, if you do that, they never let you know that you hurt them. You never realize how you hurt someone with a casual, thoughtless word or comment or glance. I think about it all the time when I am grading. I spend a lot of my time grading, and when I’m making comments, I always remember “these are human beings that you are talking to and you have to watch what you say.” You always have to remember that they are real people and they are not yet immune to the insults of life. So many students have learned in school to be scared because teachers, and other people, often don’t realize that when you are dealing with a scholar you are dealing with one of the most precious things in the world. I took me a while to learn that. Now, I have learned that lesson about how valuable students are and how delicate they are. That’s the most important thing I have learned as a teacher.

What has been your biggest accomplishment since teaching at Longwood?

Well, I guess this sounds vain, but it is also true… being named the Longwood University Board of Visitors Distinguished Professor of Anthropology. This is sort of a culmination of my career. Longwood has been here for 175 years now, and in that period of time there have only been 9 professors that were named the Longwood University Board of Visitors Distinguished Professor in whatever discipline they are in. I am the only one that was ever an anthropologist. When you stop to think about it, it apparently is a pretty big deal because it happens just once a gen

I think the reason the Board of Visitors did it was because students, colleagues, and faculty have said things over the years. In other words, I think it’s the most important thing that ever happened to me because in a real sense I wasn’t trying for it. No one is trying for that award, it just happens to you.

You have been a professor at Longwood for many years; what unique aspects of the university have encouraged you to continue working here?

All of it! I really like the Rotunda, even after it burned down and they had to rebuild it. I love High Street. I love being able to sit here in my office and see the little church that I go, the little Episcopal church, and I can see the Methodist church. I love seeing the trooper out there who has been here since the 1900s. I like the student union building, and I love the library.

The students are pretty much the same as when I got here in 1978. There is something distinct about a Longwood student, and I think I still see that in the students now-a-days. In general, they are friendly, and they often say “hi” to each other and to me. Not many of the students seem to be stuck up, not in the sense that students at other schools seem to think that they and their alma mater are a notch above everyone else. I’ve never felt that Longwood went around feeling that way about itself. I also like the way that the people in Farmville seem to value the fact that they’ve got a little college here.

The reason that I have been here for 36 years is because I really like everything. What are those few things I don’t like? There aren’t any. I like everything!