The secret lives of our profs: Assistant Professor of English Garth Bond
Naveed Islam
Issue date: 5/29/09 Section: Features
Assistant Professor of English Garth Bond came to Lawrence University four years ago when our current graduating class of seniors was just starting its second term of Freshman Studies. He had been teaching composition at Temple University in Philadelphia, when he saw an ad for a temporary position here at Lawrence.
"They were in the process of changing the position [at Temple]," he recalled, "in a way that made it less attractive. Lawrence seemed like a better option for me and while I was at Temple, I had an opportunity to teach a number of courses they were looking for someone to teach."
The professor whom he had been asked to fill in for left shortly thereafter and Professor Bond chose to stay at Lawrence where he had settled in. "I feel that I was very lucky to be the person who ended up getting the job," Bond said.
Bond grew up as "a faculty brat." His father was a law professor at Wake Forest University in North Carolina and later at the University of Puget Sound in Seattle. His mother, who earned a bachelor's degree in English, was a schoolteacher who worked with dyslexic children. "I probably inherited an interest in teaching from both of them without realizing it," said Bond, "but it was probably my mom who is to blame for my interest in English."
After finishing high school in Tacoma, Wash. he took a year off and spent his time delivering pizzas. "That was a great preparation for the life of the mind," said Bond, "because after having delivered pizzas for a year, which I loved, and suddenly going into a classroom where we were reading Plato's 'Apology' and Tocqueville's 'On Democracy in America,' I just thought, 'I didn't have these kinds of conversations with the people with whom I was working and delivering Pizzas.'"
He attended Trinity College in San Antonio, where he fell in love with the liberal arts in general, recalling wanting to be an "English-philosophy-religion-drama" major before settling on just English and religion.
"They were in the process of changing the position [at Temple]," he recalled, "in a way that made it less attractive. Lawrence seemed like a better option for me and while I was at Temple, I had an opportunity to teach a number of courses they were looking for someone to teach."
The professor whom he had been asked to fill in for left shortly thereafter and Professor Bond chose to stay at Lawrence where he had settled in. "I feel that I was very lucky to be the person who ended up getting the job," Bond said.
Bond grew up as "a faculty brat." His father was a law professor at Wake Forest University in North Carolina and later at the University of Puget Sound in Seattle. His mother, who earned a bachelor's degree in English, was a schoolteacher who worked with dyslexic children. "I probably inherited an interest in teaching from both of them without realizing it," said Bond, "but it was probably my mom who is to blame for my interest in English."
After finishing high school in Tacoma, Wash. he took a year off and spent his time delivering pizzas. "That was a great preparation for the life of the mind," said Bond, "because after having delivered pizzas for a year, which I loved, and suddenly going into a classroom where we were reading Plato's 'Apology' and Tocqueville's 'On Democracy in America,' I just thought, 'I didn't have these kinds of conversations with the people with whom I was working and delivering Pizzas.'"
He attended Trinity College in San Antonio, where he fell in love with the liberal arts in general, recalling wanting to be an "English-philosophy-religion-drama" major before settling on just English and religion.
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