You’ve probably heard this one before: French professor who used to run bodybuilding competitions.

Wait, what?

“I just liked it,” Macomb adjunct faculty member Glykeria Zguris said of bodybuilding. “I had a passion for it.”

It’s the same thing she says about her love of the French language. She was born in Greece and has earned degrees in both French and educational leadership from four different schools, including a doctorate from Roosevelt University in Chicago, which she commuted to by plane even with three children at home in Michigan.

“I have little sympathy when students can’t get to class,” she says with a smile. “If you want it bad enough, you’ll get it.”

Along the way, Zguris picked up that interesting side job of organizing high-end fitness pageants, and she says the bodybuilding principle of “show your strengths, hide your weaknesses” also comes in handy studying a language, which alternately requires speaking, reading and writing.

“Are most of my students going to become French scholars? No. But I at least want them to be able to sit in an airport in France and speak to someone,” she said. “I got one of my biggest compliments from a student who said, ‘Wow, this is easier than Spanish!’ I almost fainted, but it was because I made it feel easy for him.”

Zguris has also paraglided off a cliff in the French Alps, which she said “cured” her bucket list wish to jump from something high. It’s discovering those kind of surprising features of people she enjoys most about getting to know her students.

“The book is the book and grammar is grammar,” she said. “But I get to meet so many different people in class, and that’s what I like.”

While humanities professors are known to visit European cathedrals to better share their architectural and acoustical wonders with students, few have likely witnessed the performance of  a piece of music they have composed in one.  Macomb Professor Stuart Scott, however, is an exception.

“It was an honor,” says Scott, whose Requiem Brevis was performed by the Belfast Philharmonic Choir on Friday, Nov. 3, in St. Anne’s Cathedral in Belfast, Ireland, with Scott and his wife Cindy in the audience.

Scott’s Requiem, a musical composition that expresses the sadness of death, was commissioned in 2014 by the choral group Vanguard Voices.  The invitation to have it performed at St. Anne’s by the Belfast Philharmonic came from the choir’s director, Stephen Doughty, shown here with Scott (right) in the Belfast Cathedral. Doughty had heard the piece, composed for an eight-faced sanctuary, on a choral directors’ networking site.

“St. Anne’s is a beautiful space, perfect for the eight-choir piece,” says Scott. “The acoustics allowed the piece to really resonate from place to place within the cathedral.”

A professor at Macomb for 30 years, Scott holds a bachelor’s degree in voice, a master’s in music performance and a doctorate of arts, all from Ball State University.  One of the first professors at Macomb to embrace online learning, he appreciates the deeper dimension it can bring to art and architecture.

“I am always interested in discovering ways to bridge the gaps that exist between subject matter, knowledge acquisition and application. I think we all learn best by improving on our mistakes,” says Scott.  “In my courses, students are encouraged to do this through a variety of strategically planned activities.”

Not surprisingly, Scott didn’t miss a lecture when he was in Ireland, providing his students with a literal distance learning experience as he toured that country and Germany as well. In addition to teaching humanities, Scott directs and performs with the College’s alumni ensemble. He has also directed Macomb’s other choral groups in the past, stepping down this year to make way for a newly created full-time choral activities director, a position for which he had lobbied.  A successful freelance composer, Scott’s musical career forms a bridge of a different sort, between his perspective as a working artist and his students’ pursuit of their own creative self.

“Humanities is a broad-based subject that allows for creativity and the appreciation of creativity,” says Scott.  “Through the analysis of creative works, the student is able to gain a better understanding of themselves in the wider context of various cultures.”

 

Psychology Professor

Macomb Professor Karen Wickline’s path to teaching is a textbook case of self-actualization.  And the fact that she now spends much of her free time in prisons, should inspire her forensic psychology students not alarm them.

“I can actually say I’ve been to Rikers Island (New York’s infamous jail complex),” says Wickline, who trains facilitators for Correctional Counseling, a national organization that provides moral development counseling to convicted sex offenders.  “I’ve been to every prison in Michigan and to those as far away as California.”

It’s a specialty that Wickline didn’t even knew existed when she majored in psychology at Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where she grew up.  In fact, she had intended to pursue a degree in sports medicine until a male professor steered her away from the field, advising her it was better suited for men.  Although she still disagrees with his intent, she appreciates the door it opened to discover what it was that she really wanted to do.

“I had enjoyed my general psychology class and decided to get a job in the field,” relates Wickline. “I started working in direct psychiatric care with children and fell in love with the job.  I really loved working with the kids. After I moved to Michigan, I worked for a few years at Children’s Village (a detention/shelter facility for youths) in Oakland County.”

Previous to her move to Michigan, Wickline earned a master’s degree in clinical and counseling psychology from Chestnut Hill College in Pennsylvania and worked in an independent living program for young adults with mental health and substance abuse issues.  From there, she went to a hospital emergency room, where she did psychiatric evaluations on patients who had attempted suicide or overdosed.

“Working in that environment was eye-opening,” says Wickline, who recently collaborated with Nicole Castle Kelly, English faculty, on a suicide awareness campaign at South Campus during Suicide Prevention Week in September. “My uncle committed suicide, and I’ve had students telling me about friends who had committed suicide.  It’s something nobody wants to talk about, but it’s so important that we do.”

Wickline, however, may never have been here for those potentially life-saving discussions if she hadn’t been asked to sub for a psychology class at Northampton Community College in Pennsylvania.  That’s when she discovered her true calling and proceeded to earn a doctorate in education from Argosy University.

“I’ve been asked if I ever want to teach at a university and my answer is ‘no,’ I love teaching at a community college. You really get to know your students in this environment. I’ve had some who have taken every class I teach,” says Wickline, a licensed psychologist with her own forensics practice, as well as a contract to conduct psychological evaluations of juveniles sentenced to life in Michigan. “And I tell my students you can do what you think you want to do or you can end up being passionate about something else. Just be open to the possibilities.”

Music Instructor

Eldonna May took piano lessons at five, studied with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, attended the Interlochen Arts Academy and toured Europe with the Ford Motor Youth Symphony.  But it would be on a different set of keys, and on a different continent, that she would engage in some of the most meaningful work of her career.

May holds a bachelor’s degree in music performance, a master’s degree in musicology and an MBA from Wayne State University, a Ph.D. in musicology from Michigan State University and a Ph.D. in online teaching from Florida State University.  Also on the music faculty at Wayne State, May teaches World Music and Introduction to the Arts at Macomb, online and on campus.

“What I appreciate so much about Macomb is the privilege of working in a department with outstanding administrators and faculty,” says May, who first taught online at the University of Michigan in the 1990s. “Stu (Scott) was one of the first in Michigan to develop an online, interdisciplinary humanities course and I very much wanted to be part of the process.”

But she may never have been if not for a lecture she heard as an undergrad on the history behind Richard Strauss’ musical adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s play Salome, which convinced her to change her musical direction from performance-driven to scholarly study.  That, in turn, led to her discovery of kwaito, a music genre with ties to hip-hop and jazz, popular in Botswana, Africa.  May has just completed a year of research there on a Fulbright Fellowship – as prestigious and competitive in academia as the Oscar is in Hollywood.

“Ever since I was an undergrad, I’ve had a fascination with African history,” says May – shown center here at the U.S. Embassy in Gaborone, Botswana, with Gao Lemmenyane, director of the Centre for the Arts in Gaborone and Marang Mutuna, associate dean for Internationalization & Educational Outreach at Botho University. “In doing research on kwaito, I developed a marvelous relationship with Botho’s faculty, which led to the Fulbright.”

The Fulbright covered all of the travel and living expenses for what was May’s fifth trip to Africa.  At Botho, she developed a curriculum for the university’s new music business program and embarked upon a book project about kwaito with one of its faculty.

“Everything in Botswana is based on an oral tradition, few can read music,” says May. “But the students there so desperately want to learn.”

Back at Macomb, May is incorporating all that she learned about kwaito into her World Music class. “At the end of the day,” she says, “it’s all about helping our students grow intellectually.”

Music Instructor/Director of Choral Activities

A 1905 upright piano held a prominent place in the living room of the home Todd Moses grew up in. It was his great uncle’s and he started playing it when he was eight, following the fingertips of older siblings.  But it wasn’t until he joined the Macombers that he discovered the harmony he had been looking for.

“It was fantastic, life altering,” says Moses. “As a Macomber, I found other students as passionate about music making as myself.”

Fast forward through 30 years and several teaching posts and Moses is now poised, with baton in hand, to help other Macomb students make the same discovery.

The Macombers are Macomb’s singing and dancing troupe that perform throughout the state as well as in twice annual “extravaganzas,” the proceeds of which fund scholarships for the troupe’s members. Moses was encouraged to tryout while in the Magic Company, the College’s high school choral group. Passing that audition in 1986 was nearly as exciting as learning in May that he had gotten the job as Macomb’s new music instructor and director of choral activities at Macomb, which includes directing the Macombers.

“I just love it.  Once I get into the rehearsal room with the students, it’s so comfortable, it just flows,” says Moses, who previously served as director of choral activities at Dakota High School. “But I never truly left Macomb.”

Moses earned a bachelor’s degree in music education/voice from Ball State University and a master’s degree in teaching from Saginaw Valley State University.  Throughout his career, he has continued to stay active with Macomb’s choral groups.  He has performed with InVoice, a group of Macombers alumni, and has codirected Garfield Singers, the College’s middle school/junior high choral group. But returning to Macomb as a faculty member is about as meaningful as when he moved that 1905 upright piano into his own living room and began teaching his daughter on it.

Macomb, after all, is where Moses met his wife, Liz, a fellow music educator and Macomber alum. Macomb is where he is teaching and directing many of his former Dakota music students, including daughter, Bethany, a second-year Macomber who will be continuing her music education at Brigham Young University next year. And Macomb is where he will be able to share with aspiring music educators and performers what he believes is the most important lesson they will ever learn.

“I tell my students, love what you do and always follow your passion,” says Moses. “That is the only way to truly be fulfilled in your career.”

Reading Strategies and College Success Skills

Her students may not know that Heather Mayernik provides a safe haven each summer to migrating monarchs, but they benefit as much from her experience and enthusiasm as the butterflies the reading professor nurtures on milkweed in her backyard.

“Macomb students are smart and hardworking, and I look out for them. They are like family to me,” says Mayernik, whose been known to invite passing students she has never met before into her office on South Campus for a chat about their classes. “I know what it means to have a professor mentor you, and I try to do the same for any student who needs it.”

Mayernik’s most valued mentor was the Oakland University professor who helped her navigate academic protocols after exiting the university several years before with enough credits for a master’s in Reading and Language Arts, but without the actual degree.

“Professor Cramer helped me apply for the degree, invited me to serve as his teacher’s assistant and encouraged me to start my Ph.D. program,” relates Mayernik, who is now writing her dissertation and, also, teaching part time at Oakland. “There is no question he changed my life.”

And that, ultimately, led her to Macomb five years ago to teach Reading Strategies and College Success Skills, following a career that began, she notes, as president of her high school’s future teachers club.

“I always knew I wanted to teach,” she says.

A single mom with three children, one a junior at Purdue University, Mayernik has taught at private schools in Grosse Pointe Woods and Detroit, and at Wayne County Community College. She has also structured a professional development program for teachers in Chicago, provided online learning to students displaced by Hurricane Katrina and served as a consultant for the nation’s leading instructional services provider.  Mayernik has received two national awards for her teaching, most recently this year from the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development, part of the Community College Leadership Program at the University of Texas at Austin.

But, the passionate teacher, gardener, kayaker and scuba diver believes that, unlike the migrating monarchs who summer in her backyard, she has landed for good.

“I love the College’s philosophy that anyone can come here and change their life,” says Mayernik.  “I’ll probably never leave Macomb.”