Kristi McKim `99 B.A. English, Women's
Studies minor
Ph.D. candidate in the Women's Studies
and Film Studies departments at Emory University
"I had planned to graduate with a B.A. in English and teach high school, until a Behrend professor asked very plainly where I was going to graduate school. Such a question startled me for I had never contemplated if I would go, and yet he presumed the answer to be the affirmative and moved on the question of where. At this point, the prospect of more time in the classroom thrilled me! I wanted to be a student forever, and began seriously to consider graduate school.
The idea of extending my formal education beyond the four years of an undergraduate degree made me nervous, admittedly, but I was also curious and eager. I'm grateful for my advisor, Dr. Gregory Morris, who offered steadfast advice throughout the application process-in addition to advising my honors thesis and helping me to secure research grants during my studies. These processes and experiences undoubtedly steepened my commitment to learning as my life.
My typical day includes some combination of writing (my dissertation, entitled "The Astounded Soul: Cinematic Aesthetics of Time and Love"), teaching and class preparation, coffee at the local café, running along the Chattahoochee River, and visiting with colleagues and friends.
Behrend students and faculty instilled my belief that learning and friendship can together flourish, that the literature learned in the classroom can translate into enriched experiences beyond classroom parameters. At Behrend, whether it was in formal poetry readings or in intensified conversations over coffee, in a spontaneous reading of Leaves of Grass on a sunny afternoon under a tree with a group of English majors (yes, this really happened!) or in a classroom discussion, I came to learn the intimacy and intensity around which a community might be built. This miracle, which I then regarded and in which I still believe, defines my life; I realized at some point in my undergraduate education that I wanted to define my future not according to a concrete achievement but relative to this abstract feeling of learning from and giving to the world within the shared experiences of artistic and theoretical inquiry and appreciation."