Miami’s faculty is doing scholarship in some pretty cool topics, but maybe none quite as cool as aliens in pop culture and masculinity in superhero cartoons. This is what Dr. Sara Austin has been working on lately. Austin is in her first year at Miami University.

This semester, she is teaching ENG 262:Children’s Literature and ENG 298: Introduction to Literary and Cultural Studies.

Like many students, Austin changed course of interests during her time as an undergraduate, switching from Biomedical Engineering to English. Her career goals have shifted a bit, too. After teaching high school for three years, a fellow teacher told her she could specialize in children’s literature and she went back to grad school, first at Kansas State and then at University of Connecticut.

During her time at Miami so far, Austin’s pedagogical methods involve student-focused lessons broken into 20-minute activity blocks: usually background, connection to the previous lesson, introducing new material, and an activity. Though she’s taught at other schools before, she claims, “You guys are way more excited about everything. Miami students are very excited. Students actually do the reading and buy into it.” She even reports that a class activity has never fallen apart because students didn’t do the reading. When prompted about advice for students, she offered, “Ask for help. Go to office hours. Go to the library. You guys are paying for our time, so use it.” And of course, she has a few book recommendations as well. Currently she suggests The Red Queen series by Victoria Aveyard, but she’s also looking forward to reading Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi.

Interviewed by: Ellen Stenstrom