Schools at Beloit College bring career pathways to the center of the college experience. The School of Media & the Arts connects students with performance and presentation opportunities, possible career paths and with professionals in the field, specifically through the Beloit College Residencies. SOMA helps prepare students to be creative members of their community — whether that means organizing open mics, creating gallery exhibitions, film screenings, or publishing their own books.

Your last great watch, listen, or read?

Fabienk. It’s a song I can’t stop thinking about by a Quebecois band called Angine de Poitrine, a guitar and drum duo that wears costumes to obscure their identities. The band has gone viral, and the song is the grooviest thing I’ve ever heard. Really fun. Really out there. I played it at a Center for Integrative Learning event and students were bobbing their heads along.

Your favorite food or meal?

That’s a tough one. Probably any kind of sushi. I really like squid.

Your favorite place on campus or in the Beloit area?

Maple Tree Studios, because it’s an inviting space where students can document and share their work and find entrepreneurship opportunities. I also love that it’s a place where students can get experimental and creative for creativity’s sake.

In a similar spirit, I love WBCR, because it’s a place where students can share what they’re thinking about and what they’re excited about, with no barriers. I used to do a show called Student Hours, which is what I call my office hours. I hosted one student guest per show and the student would pick the musical theme. Then, we contributed half and half to the playlist. It could be broad such as fall weather or a specific genre, for example, progressive rock. The only requirement was that my guest had to share a song written by a Beloit College student. Often they were that student and I would interview them about their song.

Your favorite place in the world outside Beloit?

Austin, Texas. It’s a place where I perform a lot. Austin is a fun town with a lot of creative things going on. Food is awesome. Love the people.

How do you spend your free time?

I spend my free time with my family, my wife and our almost two-year-old daughter. Goofing off with them. Cooking with them. Basketball is a passion of mine and my go-to, non-arts hobby. I play on a couple rec league teams and pick-up basketball. My daughter has started liking basketball too. She says “basketball” when March Madness is on television and wants to watch it with me.

What three things would you want if you were shipwrecked on an island?

A basketball. I’m sure I can make a hoop out of something. An anthology of books to read. And, a machete, or carving tool I can use to make the hoop. You can cut grooves into wood so that if you play it on a record player, the wood will make sounds. With the same tool, I’ll also figure out how to craft my own records.

Who would you like to share a meal with, real or imagined?

Karen Carpenter. She died way too soon. She was an incredible artist with an amazing voice and presence as a drummer. I would love to pick her brain about songwriting and being a generally larger-than-life performer. Laurie Anderson might be a close second.

A favorite quote or words to live by?

I don’t typically, but my wife collects these.

This moment in your own words?

I’m glad I’m involved with the School of Media & the Arts, giving students the opportunity to take what they are learning and apply it outside of the classroom. We have plenty of students who want to explore their creativity and be a part of that community: performing, making, and sharing. Through SOMA, we find more and more ways for them to learn about what goes into that creative process and how to do it more effectively and more often. As a result, they begin to understand the vast kinds of careers available and how skills translate. It’s not a one size fits all path to take your original idea and make it something out in the world. We build our students’ toolkits and abilities to assess the situation so they choose the right one.

Recently, I’ve been really excited about how we support student clubs. SOMA identifies what their big events are, what’s special about them, and how we can help. The Beloit Independent Theatre Experience (BITE) production of Beach House is a recent example. We organized a listening party with lunch to get students talking about how to promote their work by identifying and finding collaborators. During the Ginsberg Residency, we also collaborated with Marketing Club and Career Works to organize a talk where students could ask the nitty, gritty questions about how to build a professional life as an artist. How do you make a connection? What do you do in your first weeks in a new city? How do you read contracts and budgets? We know our classes are giving students opportunities to learn theory and how to collaborate, and now we take it to the next level of production and connection.

Why Beloit?

Pedagogical freedom. The college provides unique opportunities to institutionally and professionally support creativity in all manners, shapes, and forms. I’m able to teach classes here I would never be able to teach elsewhere, and they are directly responsive to what interests students. One semester I teach hip hop and another I teach punk. I teach music theory classes of all genres and styles, media studies classes that cover films from many places, how music is scored and sound more broadly.

At Beloit College, I share experimental art and creativity with students from all walks of life, artists and athletes, all of whom respect and share the space. At other schools I would likely be with the arts students all the time. Here my classroom is a melting pot of students with multiple hats. The kinds of conversations and perspectives in our discussions are unlike any other experience I’ve had as a teacher. It feels personal, and it’s so special that I’m able to guide so many different kinds of students who leave here feeling like art is for them.