Episode Two - Transcript
Joanne Diaz 00:00
You can't come to a place like this and lose yourself in a giant lecture hall of 400
people. Which means that when you go to see your faculty advisor, you have to be responsible
for telling them what you're up to, and telling them your struggles, telling them
your successes, and finding a path forward. Right? I mean, education-it's-it's like
a jagged thing. It's not a straight line, right?
Demetria Kalodimos 00:42
Welcome, everyone, to the Illinois Wesleyan University podcast, where we talk about
great people and big happenings in the Illinois Wesleyan world. I'm Demetria Kalodimos,
a 1981 graduate in music education, but I went on to become a broadcast journalist
for more than 40 years in Nashville, Tennessee,
Andy Kreiss 01:01
And I am Andy Kreiss, a graduate of Illinois Wesleyan's class of 1986. I'm a music
theater major, but did that, but also found my way into communications and marketing
ultimately. So, and it's my pleasure to get to introduce you to Professor Joanne Diaz,
the director of the Center for the Humanities here at Wesleyan. She's been on the
faculty since 2008. And honest to God, when I say it is my pleasure to be here with
you, I'm serious. So welcome.
Joanne Diaz 01:30
Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
Andy Kreiss 01:32
Yeah. I just start us off. Is that okay? Sure. In the face of the shift in the job
market due to AI. I'm wondering if you could talk about the value of studying humanities.
Joanne Diaz 01:46
Wow, you're not beating around the bush. No, let's go right at it. That's great. That
is a great question, and I think about it every day.
Andy Kreiss 01:54
I bet it,
Joanne Diaz 01:56
Interests me because the humanities are the place where we think about what we value,
what we believe in, how we express ourselves, how we imagine the world, right? So
those are the disciplines like English literature, creative writing, history, philosophy,
languages, literatures, and cultures. And the wonderful thing that happens in those
disciplines, and of course that happens throughout the university in various ways.
Sure, but our charge in those disciplines is to really focus on what makes us uniquely
human, and for us, reading and writing our paths to discovery. Writing is sort of
not only something that is just a grammatical system; it is a creative act. It is
an analytical act, and it interests me your question because, of course, when we read
the news, when we hear sort of the buzz in our our culture, we keep hearing about
the end of editing, the end of writing, the end of reading, because AI can take care
of so many of those troublesome activities, and yet there is still something that
we are able to give to those activities. It's almost like our fingerprint, right?
Our fingerprints are uniquely our own, and the same is true with all forms of creative
and analytical writing. And I'm not too worried about the end of writing per se. And
if anything, I feel like what we have to offer students is more important than ever
before. That's what I would say. That's a short answer. There are many other ways
I could answer that. And
Andy Kreiss 03:36
I bet we'll come to it again in this discussion.
Demetria Kalodimos 03:38
So tell us more about the Center for Humanities. What is it, and what will it offer
to students that they didn't previously have?
Joanne Diaz 03:45
The Center for the Humanities is a physical space where we'll have an opportunity
to do all of the things that we do best in the humanities disciplines, right? So this
is a space in the Center for Liberal Arts where we will have book discussion groups.
We will have philosophy colloquia. We will have film screenings. We will have poetry
readings. We will have different kinds of events and programming throughout the semester
that reinforces what we're already doing beautifully in the classroom. Right? We say
that Illinois Wesleyan is the place where you come to learn about democratic citizenship
and life in a global society. We say that it's the place where you learn about ethical
decision making and critical thinking and analytical reasoning, and this is the place
where students will get and faculty and staff will get to practice that all day, every
day, and we're really looking forward to that.
Demetria Kalodimos 04:48
As the Center for Humanities evolved from an idea into a, you know, a place, a gathering
place on campus, how have things changed, and has has that coalesced nicely, like
you thought it would?
Joanne Diaz 05:02
It has. It's been really interesting. So, when we started this idea for the Center
for the Humanities, this was our first academic year of even having this notion, right?
So, in roughly April of last year, the Humanities Division asked me to be the director
for this new center, and at the time that they asked me to do that, it was an idea
to have a brick and mortar structure that we could call a center. But the beautiful
thing about the humanities is that we've been doing events and programming and workshops
and readings and all kinds of activities related to the humanities, ever since Illinois
Wesleyan has been around, right? So that's not new. But what happened, and this was
purely an accident, but it was an accident that the institution turned into an opportunity,
and that was in August of 2025. We had a terrible flood. It was the result of a malfunctioning
spigot, a sprinkler, and it just flooded the entire first floor of the Center for
Liberal Arts. It was a disaster. I mean, there was drywall was destroyed, carpeting
was destroyed, and all of the faculty who have their offices on that floor had to
relocate for the semester and go elsewhere, so they could just rip up the whole floor.
But what President Zenger and others in the administration saw was an opportunity
to turn this space into what would become an actual Center for the Humanities. So
what does that mean? It means that this is now a space that's newly furnished, new
lighting, new carpeting, and we've completely reconfigured it in such a way so that
students can use it for interactive workshops, book discussion groups, different types
of readings, performances, film screenings, just dozens of different things. And faculty
are envisioning it this way as well. So we just got the furniture installed in March.
Like this is all really, really new, and we haven't even decorated it yet. So of course
we have all these fantasies about different kinds of banners, and the students keep
telling me you should get fairy lights for the ceiling. I'm not even sure. Like I
had to Google what a fairy light was, but I was like, yes, okay, maybe. And we have
to kind of put some photos in there and posters and different ways to make the space
accessible, inviting, interactive. And that's my project for the summer. But my hope
is that by the time alumni come back for homecoming in October, it'll be colorful,
vibrant, engaging, and already. But this is the thing: even before we've put up appropriate
signage or decorations, students are already using the space. Faculty are using it
in ways that I couldn't have anticipated. So I'll give you one example. I'm super
excited about that. I think the reason I'm excited. These are not my ideas. This is
all things that faculty and staff and students already wanted to do. So we had a French
professor here, and she had a wonderful idea. Why not have a party where Illinois
Wesleyan students who are taking French courses could get to meet their counterparts
at ISU, and so she had a big party where they got to meet each other and speak in
French for a couple of hours, and it was beautiful. Right? Another example is this
is the first year that we have a humanities journal. It's interdisciplinar. History
professor Alyssa Culp is the faculty advisor for this initiative, but it's student
edited, it's student design, and they had a launch party in the center in the Center
for the Humanities, and they had a, she got a cookie cake, and it looked just like
the cover of the first issue. Wow, it was really cute, and it was it was great. Like
dozens of people were there, and you know the editors and the contributors got to
share what they had written in this in this initial volume, and it was it was a wonderful
thing to see. And in the days to come, we're going to have a study abroad event down
there. We have another professor who's brought her language classes in to do small
group work, so it's starting to become a place where people feel welcome and productive
and energized. So that that was the goal, and it's already starting to happen.
Andy Kreiss 09:32
One of the things that I loved when I was working as director of marketing was that
when we would ask faculty members, and in particular this person right here, if they
would help and they would speak, I knew that if I could get a family looking at Wesleyan
to speak with Dr. Diaz, it would be like in the bag. She was the closer. She's a closer.
Always be closing. That's her. That's true. One of the pieces I remember was. You
taught. We did a mock class for folks who were interested in the humanities, and we
talked about the outsized number of CEOs of companies that have a liberal arts background.
Can you talk a bit about that? It's so fascinating. Yeah.
Joanne Diaz 10:15
So I mean, this is something that's hard to believe, but it's true, right? We have
millions of people who go to college in the United States every year. Some of them
are going to giant state schools, community colleges, ag and tech colleges. Right,
they're going to all kinds of different institutions. Roughly, I think about 18 million
per year in the United States, and only about 4% of those people go to a small liberal
arts college. So it's a very tiny amount of people, right? But of those 4% of people
who go to a small Liberal Arts College and out, they have an outsized influence on
the culture. And so what I mean by that is, 1/3 of U.S. presidents have gone to a
place like this. You know, there are all kinds of innovators and artists and CEOs
and venture capitalists and tech innovators who have gone to places like this, right?
So we have this idea in America that bigger is always better, but it turns out that
when it comes to educating people, young people between ages 18 to 22. Sometimes smaller
is better because, and maybe this goes back to your AI question. Yeah, I think so.
I think that a place like this is all about presence and sense of purpose. And so,
by that I mean, and we were just talking about this earlier. You can't come to a place
like this and lose yourself in a giant lecture hall of 400 people, that it's not going
to be your experience. Physically impossible, right? You're not going to hide under
a baseball cap and hope that nobody knows your name. That it won't happen. Which means
that when you go to see your faculty advisor, you have to be responsible for telling
them what you're up to and telling them your struggles, telling them your successes,
and finding a path forward, and that can be a really messy, time-consuming enterprise.
But that's what we're here to do, right? I mean, education-it's-it's like a jagged
thing. It's not a straight line, right? But that's that's what we've been called to
do. So
Demetria Kalodimos 12:19
There's a there's a lot of emphasis on being job ready for certain, you know, paths
and and and lanes. How often, though, do you see a student that may be laser focused
on a certain occupation come into a humanities course, and a light bulb or many fairy
lights go off? Right? Do you see it happen?
Joanne Diaz 12:42
I do, and actually, if I could, I might give an example that isn't related to a class
per se, but is related to an experience that I was-I got to see this happen, and it
was extraordinary. I Warren Kistner, Patrick Zajac, Amie Keeton-they're at the Hart
Career Center, and I have been so lucky to work with them over the years in all kinds
of ways. But because of this Center for the Humanities, I have a faculty and staff
advisory group, and Warren is a part of that group. And so, in September of 2025,
just last year, he was in the room when we were talking about events and programming
and curricular work that we were going to do this year, and he said, "You know, every
year the Hart Career Center has a career immersion excursion during spring break,
and these are amazing opportunities for students.
Andy Kreiss 13:38
Incredible, amazing DC and far far flung. Yeah, that's right.
Joanne Diaz 13:43
Sometimes they go to Chicago, sometimes DC and elsewhere. One year it was focused
on STEM disciplines and careers. Another time it was journalism and communication.
Right. Another time it was finance. Warren said, "Why not the humanities?
Andy Kreiss 13:58
Love it.
Joanne Diaz 13:58
Let's just do it, right? And so I worked with Warren and Patrick and Amie, and we
identified not only the alumni working at cultural institutions in Chicago that might
be able to talk to students about what their lives are like, what their jobs are like,
but we also, you know, I mentioned to them, why don't we go to the Newberry Library,
and I mentioned a few other institutions. They created three and a half days of incredibly
intense experiences for students, where they were meeting young alumni, established
alumni who were doing curatorial work, legal work, work in nonprofit organizations.
They met with Juan Salgado, who's the MacArthur Genius Grant and the Chancellor for
the City Colleges, and as a result of these days together that were so intense, they
kept hearing the same message over and over again, which is you get to really hone
your critical thinking skills and then. Apply them, and then these professionals would
walk these students through a day where they would be using those humanistic kinds
of modes of inquiry all the time on the job. Right, being able to discern right from
wrong, figuring out if something is sustainable, figuring out if there are biases
embedded in certain practices, figuring out once I'll never forget Amanda Recupido.
She was a wonderful alum, English major, and now living and working in Chicago. She
said this, and I was so compelled. She said, "I wrote it in my notebook. She said,
"A budget is a set of priorities, and I was like, "Of course it is, but no one has
said it quite like that to me before, but she was able to kind of tie together all
these ways in which you could see how she was critically thinking about little details
in an organization, but then big one like the stories that we tell about the organization
as well. That's a long answer to a question that was supposed to be about the classroom,
but my point is that I saw those students come away with a very clear sense that what
they're studying is important. They felt more confident. They felt more optimistic.
They now had a network of people who want to help them. They have the names of those
people to follow up with them for informational interviews. You know what I mean,
so that's happening on campus all the time.
Andy Kreiss 16:23
Right? They're great about those fairs that everybody comes,
Joanne Diaz 16:27
Amazing.
Andy Kreiss 16:27
Job opportunities.
Joanne Diaz 16:28
They're amazing, and this is really special. Warren and Patrick, in particular, they're
always emailing people in the English department and philosophy, and like always sort
of targeting some of these opportunities, particularly for humanities majors, because
they know that these are the students who know how to read, write, and think and communicate.
So having that relationship has been invaluable. I've really enjoyed that.
Andy Kreiss 16:53
I'm convinced that my success in my life-you know-I had some success on the stage
or in front of a camera, but what kept the lights on for me and why I never had to
borrow a dime from my father again was because I knew how to think and I could write
and I could sort of work together and you know sort of see and and and and it it worked
for me and that was what I learned at Wesleyan with faculty like you.
Joanne Diaz 17:17
Yeah no it's and it happens all the time and quite often it can happen when something
theoretical or artistic or philosophical is attached to something in the real world.
Andy Kreiss 17:30
Yes.
Joanne Diaz 17:30
So to give you an example of this, just last Friday I was at a luncheon. It's an annual
event for the healthcare clinic in here in town, and Professor Carolyn Nadeau, who
is a Hispanic Studies professor, she's been here for years. She's been working with
that healthcare clinic for decades since the '90s, and she did something pretty extraordinary.
She created a medical Spanish course that gets students to certainly study in the
classroom, but then take that knowledge and proficiency and help people at this healthcare
clinic here in town. And so she's bridging, you know, the classroom with the real
world. She's creating a bridge there, and that's an incredibly fast, meaningful way
to get students to see.
Andy Kreiss 18:23
What matters.
Joanne Diaz 18:24
Education actually means, right? And we were talking earlier about this Open Doors
Prison program that we started in 2025. The students that are involved in that program,
this is an inside out program, so that means that Illinois Wesleyan students are sharing
a classroom space with justice impacted individuals at a maximum security prison,
and so these are students who are English majors, philosophy, political science, and
so theoretically their their intelligence and wisdom is incredible, but then they
get to actually bring that into another context and have an amazing connection in
a really meaningful way with people, and they see right away what their education
has done for them. It's it's very powerful.
Demetria Kalodimos 19:15
Explain the logistics of that. Do they actually go into the facility, or is it Zoom,
or how is it done?
Joanne Diaz 19:21
It's a hybrid program. The the prison is quite far away. It's a three hour drive,
and so we have many of our meetings are on Zoom, and so we're pretty lucky that we're
able to do that. And we have one to two visits to the facility per semester, and you
know when we were initially paired with Lawrence Correctional Facility, it was the
Illinois Department of Correction that suggested that relationship, and I said, "But
why does it have to be so far away? My goodness, there's the several other prisons
that are closer, and they said, "Well, there are 13 other universities in the state
of Illinois. That have relationships with other prisons, and also this is the prison
that has the greatest need. And so, if you really care about what you say you want
to do here, we recommend that you pair with this prison. And so we have, and it's
been a very powerful experience for everyone involved.
Demetria Kalodimos 20:18
Yeah, I would imagine just stepping foot into a correction facility is eye-opening
for for some of our students.
Joanne Diaz 20:25
It is, and several of the students who are involved in this program, the IWU students,
are pre-law, and they've already said that it's shaped their thinking about justice,
about punishment, about the carceral systems that we have, so it's been very powerful.
Andy Kreiss 20:44
One of the things that I always looked forward to when I was a student was the copy
of tributaries that came out. Is it still going?
Joanne Diaz 20:50
Yes, it's still going, and it's going strong. Yes, so that's the creative arts journal,
that is certainly largely the work of the editors are English majors often, but not
always. But this is a creative arts journal that includes visual art, prose, poetry.
It's all contributions by students. It's edited and designed and promoted by students.
And what a wonderful opportunity as an undergraduate to be at the front of an organization
like that, and be able to acquire those skills. If you've ever been involved with
reading submissions and then making a decision on what to accept, what needs more
work, that is such a powerful learning opportunity. So yes, students are still doing
that, and it's they're doing a great job.
Andy Kreiss 21:39
That's great. Yeah, it's good to know. Yeah, it's a great tradition.
Joanne Diaz 21:42
I know, I know.
Demetria Kalodimos 21:43
Having students physically gather in the center, which is the the bottom floor of
a building, but isn't there value of that face to face, side by side contact?
Joanne Diaz 21:55
There absolutely is. And again, if you look at these students, they were deprived
of so much of that during the most formative time of their lives in in late middle
school and high school, right, and with COVID, and so they're emerging from that,
but they're still very hungry for that type of interaction, and it's been so much
fun. Again, even in just the few weeks that we've had that furniture. It has been
so much fun to see them gathering in this space. There was a philosophy colloquium
there just a few weeks ago. There's some plans for some other events in the days to
come. But here's what's interesting: they're not just using the space for scheduled
events. They're
Demetria Kalodimos 22:41
They're spontaneous.
Joanne Diaz 22:42
Yes. they're using the space sometimes to work alone and just do some quiet work before
they meet with a professor during office hours. They might meet with a few other friends
to have just a a reading date or a time to work on a project together. The student
workers are down there, so there's some sociability there, where students are having
encounters with student workers and talking about different things on campus. So it's
the unplanned moments are as interesting to me as the planned events as well. So it's
I look forward to seeing even more of that when we return in the fall.
Demetria Kalodimos 23:20
I can say as as a journalist, and I've said this many times, I had one a one year
adventure in teaching. My hat is off to you. It really was quite a challenge, but
knowing a little about a lot is far more valuable than knowing a lot about a little.
Joanne Diaz 23:37
Yes.
Demetria Kalodimos 23:38
You may be called upon tomorrow to to explain the tax code, and the next day you're
interviewing a scientist or a medical doctor, and a day after that you're talking
to a musician. You you really need that breadth of experience and appreciation, and
I don't see it coming out of a very very focused education that might be purely technical,
and there's a place for that. I know, sure. But I think what can be offered here,
especially when students take advantage of the whole opportunity and course load here
at Wesleyan, is they can get that sort of breadth.
Joanne Diaz 24:14
I think that's true, and this is something that people tell me all the time. I don't
know it because I've been a professor for so many years, but people in the workforce-I've
heard this and read this dozens of times. Whatever your like, whatever job you think
you'll have when you graduate from college will already have changed by the time you
graduate. So if that's true, and it is true, that is always that's been the case since
you and I went to college, right? If we know that's true, then that means agility
and flexibility and resilience and curiosity are going to be your best friends. And
if you've taken courses, and this is why we have our shared curriculum. This is why.
We have those general education classes. They're not just a checklist that you have
to go down and check everything off the list to get out of here. Those are opportunities
to challenge your value system, to challenge what you think you know, so that you
can constantly be in that place of you know sort of intellectual vigilance and be
ready for the next opportunity, right? So yes, yes to technical skills. There's no
question we have to know those. I'm teaching a literary editing and publishing course
next spring, and already I know that this summer I really want to create a much better
module all about InDesign and how to create, you know, using the most recent version
of InDesign, because I feel like if you're going to leave a class like that, you have
to have some basic principles of layout and design, or at least be aware of them,
right?
Demetria Kalodimos 25:54
Even though the software could be miles ahead by the time you're yes,
Joanne Diaz 25:58
It'll have 15 updates between when they take the five,
Andy Kreiss 26:01
You'll have to buy a whole new system by the end.
Joanne Diaz 26:03
Of course, but and we know that. But even so, it's still worth doing. But also, in
addition to that, I'm always about yes and right. Both things can be true. Yes to
the technical skills, but also to the theoretical frameworks that you then attach
to those skills, yeah.
Andy Kreiss 26:22
So good, so good. Which brings me to a question: What do you think the Petrick Idea
Center will offer students in the humanities?
Joanne Diaz 26:31
Oh, I think it's going to be great. I'm really excited about it. I'm excited about
the new director. I'm excited to see what he'll bring. I was lucky enough to be on
the search committee for the director, and one of the things that I noticed most about
Ben is that he is he is he's a young man still, but he's had so much terrific experience.
And at the heart of each of the stories that he was able to tell about his experiences,
was that he was able to see a gap or a problem or a challenge, and he was able to
see a solution to it, and and then he just did it, and he's like he's that kind of
person. You know what I mean? I'm very very excited about this person. I was talking
to Brian McCannon, and I told him there was an anecdote that Ben mentioned during
our one-on-one conversation, and I was so inspired by it that I wrote a poem. Like
I went home and I wrote something. I was like, it was a very cool story. It was something
about like AI robots, like in a parking lot in California. It was crazy. I don't know.
I can't even read the poem. I will, you know, I will. But the point is, he again,
he just strikes me as someone who can model that kind of thinking for students across
a wide variety of interests and aptitudes. You know, so the short answer, the Petrick
Idea Center, it's going to have a lot of kinds of spaces in it. I'm particularly interested
in the sort of stadium seating space.
Andy Kreiss 28:05
That's my favorite from the drawing.
Joanne Diaz 28:07
Why? Why is it you have? Well,
Andy Kreiss 28:08
I think it'll. I think it'll really foment connection. Yeah, and that anyone who has
something to say or perform or do or write or speak can can have an audience, sort
of a place for them to be.
Joanne Diaz 28:19
Yeah.
Andy Kreiss 28:20
I don't know if you've seen it yet, but it's it's so
Demetria Kalodimos 28:22
only in sketches. Yeah, yeah.
Joanne Diaz 28:24
Well, and there's there's another thing about that particular space that interests
me, and that is that's the largest sort of window facade, and it faces out. It faces
beyond IWU to the community.
Andy Kreiss 28:37
Faces Main Street.
Joanne Diaz 28:38
Yes, it does, and that interests me. I feel like the architects must have had a hint
there that we should be reaching out to the community, and so I don't know what the
director will do in his first, second, third years. But my hope is that we could we
have an opportunity to bring as many kinds of people into the space as possible to
certainly think about innovation and entrepreneurship, but maybe to talk about ideas.
I mean, it is an idea center, right? So maybe
Andy Kreiss 29:07
I love that. And in fact, one of the things I was charged with during my time here,
and we worked on it, but it was hard, was how do we get the message that Wesleyan
is here to this community across the streets, if you will, of Emerson and Maine and
and all that, and and it feels like this is one of the salvos that'll really do that.
Joanne Diaz 29:24
Yes.
Andy Kreiss 29:25
Which brings me to a question: How? What do you feel like Dr. Z and his entourage
have? How have they changed? What energy is different? How? What do you feel like
they've brought to the campus for you now?
Joanne Diaz 29:37
So much. Say, say. What a great. Where do I begin? I have a whole catalog of things
that have changed here, but there's two. I was just talking to a student about this.
I I don't really know anything about leadership. I don't really understand what makes
a great leader, but it. Do you know what I do? I always read. The Sunday business
section of the New York Times every week when it comes, I still get the hard copy
of the paper.
Andy Kreiss 30:06
Good for you.
Joanne Diaz 30:06
And I think the reason that I read that section first is I actually know nothing about
business. I'm I'm not a money person. I know nothing about it, but there's often interesting
articles in that section about CEOs, about leaders in various fields, and the thing
that I keep noticing in those articles is that when a leader can trust and respect
the people who work with them, they can get those people to do amazing things, and
that is what President Zenger has brought to this place. There's many other things
he's brought, but for me as a worker at this place, he trusts his faculty members,
he respects our expertise, and he appreciates us and wants to support us. And I see
him extending that to the students and staff as well. It's hard to overstate how amazing
that's been and how quick the transformation has been in the vibe of this place. I
don't know if you what you would say, but
Andy Kreiss 31:12
I feel like that too. And for me, it's his presence at events and everywhere I go,
he's there. Yeah. But I love that idea that he's hired and he's got a great team,
and then he lets the team do what they're great at, which is certainly what you do.
Joanne Diaz 31:27
Yeah, well, no, it's it's been really it's been a great two years. It's been a lot
of fun to see what's happened here. Yeah,
Demetria Kalodimos 31:34
Joanne, after 18 years, you have seen many many classes come through here. What are
the constants among Illinois Wesleyan students? But what are the new concerns? What
what are how have they changed?
Joanne Diaz 31:49
Yeah, that's a big one. I would say a a lot of people ask me, what is it like? What
are students like right now? And a lot of people outside of academia are very concerned
about people late in late adolescence, early adulthood, and rightly so. I mean, we
know the numbers about anxiety, about depression, about concerns about future employment.
I mean, their debt, college debt. I mean, the things that they They are facing can
feel very daunting, and all of that is true. I I am concerned about that every day.
Oh, and even bigger sort of epistemological questions that are raised by technology
and how we how are we going to interact with each other when we're constantly in front
of our devices when we are constantly using that as a proxy for actual socialization
and authentic social experiences? Having said that, I still believe that at their
core, the students are the same as they have always been, and me and my husband always
debate this because he's a professor at ISU. He's like, no, they've changed, they've
changed irrevocably. Everything has changed, and I'm like, actually, I don't think
they have though. And the reason I don't think students have changed at their core
has the culture changed? Absolutely. Have the challenge the faces you know the things
that they're facing their challenges those have changed they become certainly COVID
derailed a lot of things for everybody in the culture but once you get people in that
room and you start talking about a play by William Shakespeare the things that he's
able to get us to do together are still the same thing, and if anything, he's able
to reach from 400 years ago and still bring us joy and still bring us moments of empathy
or frustration or fury that we can still feel, and I'll give you an example of this.
In just a week, I'm about to take 21 students to London and Paris for a May term trip,
and it's all the the class is called Maps, Bones, and Windows: London and Paris in
the Medieval and Renaissance periods, and so I was going to say, seriously, this class
is going to be great. Even if I'm terrible, it's going to be great. No, here's why
though, because it's going to be we're going to go see Midsummer Night's Dream at
the Globe Shakespeare Theater. We're going to make do a right, yeah. We're gonna do
a bookmaking workshop at the British Library. We're gonna go to a medieval village
in France and do a stone cutting workshop. I mean, it's it's gonna be gonna go to
like you know pilgrimage sites and all this. So we're really going to inhabit the
frames of mind of people from 1000 years ago. However, you know, it occurred to me
we're gonna we go. Already have our tickets for the performance at the Globe, but
the students who are going with me, there's a few English majors, but most of them
are nursing, psychology, business, a whole range of students, right? So I thought,
wait a minute, we can't go cold to see this play, and lots of students, even English
majors, have apprehension with Shakespeare's language, so one of the students said
to me, "Why don't we do a read aloud of Midsummer? And I said, "Well, all right. So
I got a bunch of copies. We did. We got some pizza and salad, and you know what I
did? I made PowerPoint slides and that included a summary for each scene in the play.
I I just started with slide one. I said let's just do this, and I gave them each a
little placard so that they would know which character they were playing. Each of
them had a script, and these are not like trained actors. They're just you know ordinary
kids who just trying to get through the day. We were laughing so hard, and they were
getting it, you know what I mean? And boy, William Shakespeare, man, he's my boyfriend.
I love him. Like it's because of him. I have this job first of all, right? But to
see that, to see just people who weren't expecting that encounter and weren't sure
what to think about it, within three hours they had had this. Well, two and a half.
They'd had this really
Andy Kreiss 36:22
Transformative.
Joanne Diaz 36:23
Transformative experience. They can now go to the play with a little more confidence,
you know. And and the fact that we did it together brought us together as a group
a little more, right? So when they go together and travel together, they can lean
on each other a little bit more too. I forget what the question was. I don't know.
No,
Andy Kreiss 36:23
Did you do it at the Center for Humanities?
Joanne Diaz 36:44
No, we should have though. It's an excellent idea. Okay, sorry. Next time, next time.
Demetria Kalodimos 36:48
The journal for the Center. Isn't there a journal? Humanitas, yes. Yeah. Where do
alums and other people that might not be around here access it?
Joanne Diaz 36:59
Well that's wonderful. that's online? I'll send you a copy. Okay, it's in print version
and online, which is beautiful.
Demetria Kalodimos 37:01
We still love print.
Joanne Diaz 37:06
Yeah, I know we love print. I really do. And actually, I was sort of the stick in
the mud that said to Alyssa, "Come, can we please have as many print versions as possible?
And she she did. She created a whole bunch, which was great for our humanities conference
that we had in February. So she was able to splay them all on the table, put them
in the folders of presenters and participants, and it's a beautiful journal. So we
have the print version, which, as I say, we're happy to send those to anyone. But
also, the library is hosting a web page where all the issues will have a digital home,
so you can browse through it.
Demetria Kalodimos 37:43
Wonderful, and there's a little bit of everything in there.
Joanne Diaz 37:46
Yeah, there's philosophy, English, history, and for me, and I look forward to seeing
what will happen in future issues. I am a huge fan of any moment when the humanities
disciplines intersect with other disciplines, whether that's medical humanities, right,
environmental humanities, humanities and entrepreneurship, right. So looking at those
moments of interdisciplinarity to see how these fields talk to each other, right.
So I I am really excited to see what students will do in the future.
Andy Kreiss 38:18
We we should congratulate our guest because a book of poetry, her third third just
came out a week and a half ago. Fantastic, called Electric Dress, and I'm so excited
about that. I'm wondering what it's like to write a book and then have it come out.
And,
Joanne Diaz 38:39
Yes, well, I mean, yeah, this is what we do, you know. However, for me, it's been
a long time since I've published a book. I've been writing, you know, all those years
that before it came out, and so a lot of the poems in there, some of them had their
genesis in ideas or experiences from like 10 years ago. So now I'm doing readings
in different places, and I'm reading these poems, and I'm like, oh God, who who even
was I then when I wrote this thing, you know? But it's interesting too because when
a poet writes a collection and then it's published in the world, of course, I have
that in my mind, but a person reading or hearing the poem for the first time doesn't
necessarily have that, and so they they may end up having an emotional or intellectual
experience that is different or so far from what I remember, and it's nice to reengage
with that.
Andy Kreiss 39:37
The reason I asked it is I'm thinking about our alum audience and and ways they could
explore you more about this new book. What what would you say? What what would you
like to convey to our alumni audience? What what do they not know about the English
department? What do they not know about Wesleyan anymore? What's
Joanne Diaz 39:57
Yeah, that's a good question. Well. We now have a communication major that's overseen
by the English department, which again is very. It is a model of interdisciplinarity.
Truly, like the communication degree is a liberal arts communication degree. Do you
know what I mean? In the so, for example, you have graphic design courses being offered
from the School of Art and Design. That's one of the courses that you can take for
a communication degree. You have digital storytelling, which is taught by Professor
Brandi Reissenweber , who's the the new Kemp award winner. Yes, yes, for teaching
excellence. She teaches a digital storytelling class where you learn about this technology,
video content, podcast content, web storytelling. Right, that is a credit that course
that you can take for the communication major. What's another one? She also teaches
a course called Creative Nonfiction. So when people hear a phrase like creative nonfiction,
they think it's like an oxymoron, like jumbo shrimp or something, right? But it's
true stories, but told in compelling ways. Whether that's essay, memoir, research-based
profiles, there's all kinds of things under that umbrella, right? So that counts toward
the communication degree, as do all of those courses in the journalism sequence that
Jim Plath has been teaching for years, as does an internship that you can take in
editorial work that you know has been there for years. So that's what I mean when
I say you can dip your toe into a marketing, which is it's a course that's offered
in business. That's part of the communication. So it's it's very much drawing upon
the strengths of several different departments to create something unique. And I think
students and alumni should be excited about that.
Andy Kreiss 41:58
Great.
Joanne Diaz 41:58
Yeah.
Andy Kreiss 41:59
What what telling tell what have we left out that you'd love to cover that that speaks
to your heart?
Joanne Diaz 42:03
Well, there's so much that I'm super excited about, and and again, this is all the
work of my colleagues in other departments, in the English department certainly, but
in other departments as well. You mentioned the ethics bowl. This is something that
we're super proud of at this university.
Andy Kreiss 42:22
And they've won, done really, really well.
Joanne Diaz 42:24
Yeah, they've been nationally ranked in the past. Yes, yes. And so each year, Andy
Engen he gets them that training. It's actually a class, by the way. It's not just
an extracurricular activity. They can also take an ethics ball class and get that
really rigorous training and preparation to do that debating kind of and really high
level thinking that's required of that competitive work that they do. So that's happening
all the time, and we're super proud of that. The Language Resource Center. So this
this is something that the Center for the Humanities certainly supports, but it's
been around for years. It actually was in Buck Hall for many years when the languages
were housed in Buck Hall, and now that we're in the Center for Liberal Arts on the
third floor, and I would encourage alumni to ask about it and visit.
Andy Kreiss 43:18
When they come for homecoming.
Joanne Diaz 43:19
When they come for homecoming, Christina Amaeda is the director of the Language Resource
Center, and that is a beehive of activity. So that's where students come for tutoring
services in second languages. It's where they have events. So, for example, Christina
has this wonderful lesser taught languages series. So these are the languages that
we don't necessarily teach at Illinois Wesleyan, like
Joanne Diaz 43:45
Like Navajo, like Nahuatl, like just indigenous indigenous languages of Central and
South America, Portuguese, Arabic, right? And actually, a few years ago, there was
a student who gave us a poetry workshop that was about the huzzle, which is a a poetic
form that is very popular in Arabic poetry, and she kind of walked us through a poem
written in Arabic and then translated it into English. It was fantastic.
Andy Kreiss 44:16
Cool.
Joanne Diaz 44:16
So that's happening. Okay. Todd Fuist, who's in sociology and criminology. He has
a book discussion group called "What's the Big Idea. It just started this year, and
he and students who are interested they choose these books quite often. They're not
too long, pretty short, written by philosophers or social theorists and critics. And
we read the book and we discuss it, and it's amazing. We talk about everything from
burnout to late capitalism and everything in between. It's awesome. I briefly mentioned
the humanities conference, humanities plus conference, which it was very successful
in February of this year. We'll be continuing that in years.
Andy Kreiss 44:57
What does it look like?
Joanne Diaz 44:59
It's a full day. It's very intense, and it's not just for Illinois Wesleyan students,
but for students throughout the region. So we had students coming from Missouri, from
Chicagoland, from elsewhere, and it was all undergraduates presenting their best work
on thematically related panels. Illinois Wesleyan students were the moderators. We
had a career development panel called Speed Dating in the Humanities. We and many
of the professionals who came to that event were Illinois Wesleyan alumni. Yeah, right.
So we had one table. There was a lawyer at one table. There was a journalist at another
table. A high school teacher at another table, and the students would sort of go around
and ask questions and have conversations with these professionals. And of course,
when I think of an event like that, I think of the student who maybe doesn't have
a network, right? Doesn't have or have a vision of what a network for job seeking
would be well when they leave that conference. Now they have that network, right?
They're beginning to have that, and then we had a humanities banquet and a keynote
address by Steve Mintz, who was a terrific literature scholar.
Demetria Kalodimos 46:12
One of the things we want to do with this podcast is to help people round out their
reading lists. So we're asking our guests to come up with a book suggestion. It could
be electric dress. It could be electric dress, but she's so modest. She would never
come out. But what would you recommend at the moment?
Joanne Diaz 46:33
Honestly, yeah, the one that's blown my mind the most lately, and I got to talk to
Gabe, Gabe Spaulding about this. It's a book by an Italian physicist named Carlo Rovelli.
It's called The Order of Time, and it's it's about time from a physicist's point of
view, but written in sort of layperson's language so that you can understand time
and space and all of this. Mind blowing, loved it. And then the other one would be,
I reread, and this was a book that we read with the IWU Lawrence Correctional Facility
Group. We read Marcus Aurelius's Meditations, and that was really phenomenal. So those
are two big ones that have been at the front of my mind in recent weeks and months.
Yeah.
Demetria Kalodimos 47:22
Thank you so much for taking time with us.
Joanne Diaz 47:24
Oh, thank you for having me. This was fun.
Andy Kreiss 47:26
This is a treat to be with you.
Joanne Diaz 47:27
Yeah, thank you.