Jeff Kerssen-Griep
Professor of Communication Studies

Every May the University honors one among its 180 professors as the outstanding teacher of the year, and last year the OTOTY was the exuberant ebullient erudite energetic elastic articulate amused educated openhearted Jeff Kerssen-Griep, who teaches all sorts of communication courses and is a scholar of what he calls ‘facework’ as a crucial aspect of learning. “I like the metaphor of students discovering they’re in a band,” says the man who is himself in three bands, which we don’t know how he does this as he has two young children and a spouse he has a crush on. “Students often wander into the beginning of a course expecting a performance, expecting to be the audience, so it’s a delight to help them wake up and discover their own powers and capabilities — especially as they are doing so amid a group of similar seekers. If I do my craft well, students willingly engage the canons of evidence for my discpline, but also walk away from the course eager to learn everything, eager and able to join the band in other classes and far beyond classes. Down deep that’s really what we’re after in class — the development of a fascination with learning faaaar beyond the boundaries of the matters at hand.”