Michael Gammon: a world opens
Think back over the course of your life. You’ve probably spent hundreds of hours in a classroom.
At some moment during those hours—if you’re lucky—something caught your interest: a historical figure, a musical era, a particularly elegant scientific theory, an author, an insight, an idea. It was one of those rare aha! moments.
Intrigued and inspired, you tracked down more information. You talked with professors. You got online or went to the library, purchased books and even wrote about it.
Inspired and Intrigued
Something like this happened to UIS student Michael Gammon. His aha! moment came when he read the book Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko for a class on Native American literature.
Michael says the book, which is about a Native American man who returns to home after fighting in World War II, changed his life:
“It reinvigorated my love of nature and my belief that I could feel less alienated from nature and society.”
Inspired, Michael wrote about how this book and the others in the class changed his thinking over the course of the semester.
His professor, Dr. James Ottery, saw something special in the paper and invited Michael to be on a panel he was putting together for a Native American Literature Symposium in Michigan, a symposium where Michael could meet others who shared this new interest.
But Michael was paying his own way through college, working part-time to pay his living expenses, and when you’re living on ramen noodles, it’s hard to come up with the cost of a trip to Michigan.
A Special Fund
Fortunately, there was a fund within Student Affairs at UIS that students could apply to for help with special opportunities like this: the Vice Chancellor’s Fund for Excellence. This fund, made up of your donations, is there to encourage students like Michael.
Thanks to the generous donations of UIS' donors, Michael had the $350 he needed to make the trip.
At the symposium, Michael gave his presentation, listened to others, talked with like-minded people who shared his interest in Native American literature and Silko’s writing in particular, and exchanged phone numbers and emails so he could continue contact.
If you have ever had a chance to meet with people who share your interests, you know what Michael means when he says the symposium was an enormously important event in his academic progress.
Moving Up and On
Today Michael is in graduate school at UIS, getting his master’s degree in English, specializing in psychoanalytic literary criticism. Scholars in this tradition apply a psychological theory to literary works—Michael uses Lacanian psychoanalytic theories.
His future plans?
He likes teaching, something he discovered through his work at UIS’ Center for Teaching and Learning, but his first love is writing.
So he is thinking he might go on and get his Ph.D. in English and get a job teaching at a university where he can also work on a literary magazine or scholarly journal. Whatever he does, his interest in Native American literature will go with him.
UIS—Where Students Stop Back In
Like so many other students at UIS, Michael’s path to academic excellence was roundabout. He started his undergraduate program at another college, switched colleges and then dropped out for a few years.
While working, he happened to sign up for an online course in science fiction at UIS and from there decided to finish his degree. Ready for the work, he double majored with a minor and did so well that he decided to keep going. In all likelihood, he will be a professor one day.
“The thing that has helped me the most,” Michael says, “is that I have gotten to know my professors. UIS is a small enough university that most classes are taught by professors—and they are very accessible. I’ve grown as much in conversations I’ve had in professors’ offices as I have in my personal studies and time in the classroom.”
One of those professors is Dr. James Ottery, who included Michael on his symposium. How fortunate that gifts from donors like you helped make it possible for Michael to attend the symposium!
Please give generously to this fund which helps students like Michael.
