Staff Writer- Evangelyn Hill
A college professor’s most obvious job is, of course, teaching. And many students only see this side of their professors. But college professors are often at the forefront of research: creating their own studies, writing papers, and/or presenting at conferences. Of course, Gustavus professors are no exception.
A series of events called Faculty Shop Talks allows Gustie professors to present their explorations and achievements to each other. While shop talks aren’t open for students to attend, Psychology Professor Lucie Holmgreen provided a behind-the-scenes glimpse into her upcoming talk, “Nice Guys Deserve Sex: A Failure as Fascinating as a Success,” based on her latest research project.
Explaining her research focus, “Broadly speaking, I study sexual violence… in specific college campus sexual violence,” Holmgreen said. She has also explored myths around rape and people’s concepts of “nice guys,” which is the focus of her Shop Talk.
Faculty Shop Talks is “A program sponsored by the Kendall Center for Engaged Learning. This is an opportunity for Gustavus faculty to present their research to their colleagues,” History Professor Maddalena Marinari said.
As part of the Kendall Center staff, Marinari opens the shop talk schedule every spring to interested faculty. Marinari, who sets up the shop talks, spoke to the purpose behind creating the shop talks: “We don’t often know who we work with,” Marinari said; so the shop talks are an opportunity to see what the other faculty members are working on.
Holmgreen is excited about what the Kendall Center does for professors, calling it Gustavus’s version of a faculty development center. It’s “an entity on campus that consists of faculty helping each other become better faculty,” Holmgreen said.
She also loves the variety of research demonstrated in the shop talks. Previous talks have involved everything from analytical chemistry to art history.
Holmgreen’s own topic, sexual violence, is one that hits close to home. During her undergrad study, she began to understand the impact of sexual abuse from a friend’s personal experience. Holmgreen said that the friend’s experience had “a profound impact.” When she began working on her master’s thesis, it was still very much on her mind.
Holmgreen “started looking at whether perpetrators of sexual violence on college campuses might be more attracted to women who they thought might be vulnerable to sexual assault for some reason.” She began to study variables involved in [the] perpetration of sexual violence, such as attachment in relationships.
She pointed out that the #MeToo movement, while a hugely impactful campaign, didn’t actually decrease rates of sexual violence. Facts like that are what push her to continue and deepen her research.
After finishing school, her interest continued to grow; she began to investigate perpetration more specifically, and the beliefs that tend to predict it. That’s what her shop talk will focus on.
The study being presented in her shop talk didn’t turn out the way she’d expected – the results were surprising. Still, she says she learned from the study and is excited to share that knowledge with her fellow faculty members.
Holmgreen’s dedication to her work does not go unnoticed on campus. She frequently works with students to conduct her research, and other professors have taken notice.
“We don’t have a lot of faculty who are engaged at that level… students love working with her,” Marinari said.
Marinari also pointed out that before Holmgreen arrived on campus, the school didn’t have anyone focusing on trauma research. She believes that Holmgreen’s work has brought more awareness of sexual violence to both students and faculty.
Holmgreen also sees the Gustavus community as having a profound impact on her life and research. When she began teaching at Gustavus, her husband was in another state and she was caring for their infant son. Feeling isolated, she began attending the shop talks to get to know people. There, she “found [her] people.”
The shop talks are an opportunity for faculty to talk about their research, and that draws professors who are interested in, as Holmgreen put it, “a little bit of everything… a liberal arts community of scholars.” In other words, they get to hear really smart people talk about things they know a lot about.
“Believe it or not, faculty shop talks are one of my favorite things that Gustavus does,” Holmgreen said.
She hopes that someday, the program might be expanded to include student-facing events so that the Gustavus population can see their own professors’ groundbreaking research.