Amelia Dewberry-

This week’s Gustie of the Week is Associate Professor in Communication Studies Phillip Voight.

Voight first came to Gustavus in 1990 after one year at Concordia College. “At the time I thought I would just stay until I completed my dissertation at the University of Minnesota, but I quickly fell in love with the people and the campus and the rest is history,” Voight explained. He coached speech and debate at Gustavus and also served as a National Council Member, President, and Chief Operating Officer of Pi Kappa Delta, the oldest forensics professional organization in the country, for almost 20 years.

At Gustavus, Voight most loves teaching the Cambodia and Vietnam study away course he offers with Professor in Communication Studies Patricia English-Schneider. English-Schneider said she “loves having him as my co-instructor. He is flexible and very knowledgeable about Southeast Asia.”

The course is called Brother Enemy: Identity Resistance and Liberation in Cambodia and Vietnam, and “it offers students an incredible opportunity to see a part of the world that they might otherwise not experience,” Voight said. He explained that the class is particularly important to him because he is doing “scholarly research on the way in which Cambodia curates the genocide that took place there in the mid-1970s, so the class combines my teaching and research interests into one package.”

Professor in Philosophy and Nobel Conference Director Lisa Heldke worked closely with Voight in planning this year’s Nobel Conference. She recalled, “When I asked him if he would be willing to share the Nobel Conference on sleep, his response was that he knew nothing about sleep. In the span of about a week, he assembled a catalog of scholarly articles about the topic and had already read and summarized them.” Heldke considers the ability to read, digest, and catalog loads of information one of his superpowers. “I know he’d say it’s because he was a debater, but I don’t think that explains it all,” Heldke said.

The conference planning committee met for about 18 months before the conference. “During that time, we really became experts on sleep. It was a huge logistical task, of course, and Lisa Heldke and Barb Larson Taylor were the ones who deserve all of the credit for making the conference such a resounding success,” Voight said.

One of Voight’s main takeaways from the conference is that there is room for improvement in “communicating health information and scientific discourse to the general public.” He felt that Drs. Amita Sehgal and Maiken Nedergaard’s lectures pointed to how to go about doing this. “On a personal level, it was incredibly gratifying to meet experts in the field of sleep science because I have long struggled with Sleep Apnea,” Voight noted.

Voight is also regarded as an incredible colleague by English-Schneider and Heldke, among many others. “He is open, respectful, and really smart. I appreciate his support for all the members of our department” English-Schneider added. Similarly, Heldke appreciates that Voight has always said yes to every request she’s approached him with, regardless of what it is.

In his free time, Voight likes to read, make papercrafts, and spend time with his dog, Masha. He is also known for sending handwritten cards. “Phil is the last of the great card senders and usually those cards are handmade by him. He gets them out before the event is over. Honestly, whenever I organize anything with him, I feel like a slouch because he’s writing the notes as he drives away from the event,” Heldke said.