English - Faculty Profile - Lael Ewy

Lael Ewy
English department faculty
620-327-8330
laele@hesston.edu

B.G.S., Wichita (Kan.) State University, 1996
M.F.A., creative writing, Wichita State University, 1999
 

How did you choose to study writing and English?
I didn’t choose to study writing; it chose me. I can’t remember a time I didn’t write. It has just always been something I did since the time I was able.

What are your favorite courses to teach? What do you like about them?
Creative Writing is the most fun because that’s my background, and literature classes are an obvious corollary, but College Writing, which is to say composition, is a pleasure because it could be about anything and therefore allows the teacher and the student to connect the classroom experience to everything else around them.

How does your background and educational experience shape your teaching at Hesston?
This is an impossible question to answer. They’re inseperable

What do you most want to know about prospective students?
How dedicated are you? How willing are you to take personal and intellectual risks? And how willing are you to read a lot and write a lot and to delve into subjects you didn’t consider before?

How do you connect with students in the program?
Well, I’m a writing teacher, so primarily through their papers. This is why it is important for students to write honestly, using the assignment as a way to say what they mean and not as a game played between professor and student. I connect, frequently through discussion as well. All the PowerPoint slides in the world are no substitute for the spontaneous discovery of good discussion.

What do prospective students need to know about Hesston’s learning environment?
Students need to know that Hesston will challenge them to find their own time and space to learn. Some of that challenge will come from their instructors, but some of it will come from the temptation to go to Druber's in the middle of the night instead of sleeping or studying, or to blow off a paper until the last minute. The freedom to choose this is necessary, in a way, to being able to do it right. The wisdom to choose the right way is a measure of how well a student has learned.

Where do alumni go and what do they do after Hesston?
Where don’t they go?