Interviews

This is another entry in our recent series of interviews by Annie Livingston and Amanda Reed. Our subject this time is Curt Nehring Bliss, one of the English professors at Finger Lakes Community College!

Curt Nehring Bliss

Interviewers: Annie Livingston and Amanda Reed

Have writing and literature always been a big part of your life?

I have a record of my writing all the way back to kindergarten, so yes, writing has always been a big part of my life. It’s how I kind of coped with all of my heartbreaks in high school and junior high. I have been using writing as a way of understanding myself in the world almost my entire life. Literature came a little later; I didn’t really discover literature until the end of my sophomore year of college. I was Chemistry major when I started as an undergrad, and than I took a required literature course and fell in love with poetry. I changed my major that summer, and ever since then I have just been a veracious reader.

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This is the first of a series of interviews by Annie Livingston and Amanda Reed. Our first subject is Trista Merrill, the head of the Honors Studies department at Finger Lakes Community College!

Trista Merrill

Interviewers: Annie Livingston and Amanda Reed

Why did you decide to teach? How did you come to teaching at FLCC?

I have always wanted to be a teacher. I remember playing school as a kid and I always wanted to be the teacher.  One of the things that inspired me was the movie Dead Poet’s Society with Robin Williams. In that movie, the teacher’s ability to excite students to be that thrilled about something they normally would not be was such a huge inspiration for me, and I had a variety of college professors and high school teachers who were the same way. I was so passionate about the things I loved, like reading and writing, that I wanted to be able to excite others about them as well.

I came to FLCC because I had grown up in this area and when I came back through, I was looking at SUNY schools around to see who had opportunities. I realized that there was some really good community colleges around here, and I saw that FLCC was hiring. About a year after I finished my doctorate I ended up here teaching.

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