September 2021
This month we asked our students to pick and write about a
professor who most embodies the true sprit of the Mount
A professor of theology
McKenna Snow
Class of 2024
In the fall of my freshman year at the Mount, I was placed in an intro-level Catechism course. I was highly interested in the Theology major the Mount offered, so this class was a good place to start. I came into the class hoping for an in-depth exploration of the Catechism, as well as challenging and yet fruitful assignments.
Fortunately, the class not only met my hopes but exceeded them and helped solidify my inclination to major in Theology. I knew from the experience of this course that I wanted to go deeper in the study of the Catholic Church and God’s relationship with man. The course content was very well-paced and well-presented; and the presenter, or professor, himself was especially admirable.
This course was taught by Dr. Barrett Turner, Associate Professor of Theology with tenure at the Mount. His teaching style was interactive, allowing students to ask and answer questions, and he provided ample responses to them. He was attentive and interested in learning the names of all the students, understanding their viewpoints, and teaching in a way that met each student where they were in regard to theological topics. During the year, I worked for the Theology Department as a work study student and was lucky to have conversations with Dr. Turner outside the classroom that allowed me to ask him my often-lengthy questions regarding the week’s lectures and other questions I had about the Church. These conversations have been formative and helpful in my development as a theology major with an interest in writing and researching.
Dr. Turner lives in Emmitsburg with his wife and seven children. In an interview I conducted with him, Dr. Turner spoke about some of his favorite aspects of the area and the University. "The Mount, which of course did not always have an interstate running through it, remains a place of retreat for formation in God’s truth for the sake of leaving to serve and love God and those made in His image in the world," he explained to me. "The connection between work and family, university and town has been healthy for my family. We attend Mass most often at the Seton Shrine, sitting near the bones of St. Elizabeth herself. We can even walk there depending on the weather." The Seton Shrine is a beautiful church about five minutes from the Mount campus, and many Mount students love to attend Mass there as well.
Dr. Turner explained, "I began at the Mount as an assistant professor of theology in August 2015, right out of my doctoral studies at the Catholic University of America… My work is to teach Catholic theology at the undergraduate level to lay students, and to contribute to theological research through publishing." He has been a helpful guide to me regarding internships I have looked into as an editor for Catholic publishers and has helped me learn more about the various ways a theology major with an interest in writing can pursue his or her talents.
Regarding how a typical workday goes for him, Dr. Turner said that "it does vary according to the teaching schedule and with a large family. I try to remain flexible to help out at home as much as possible. A typical teaching day could be rising around 6:30, coffee and reading Sacred Scripture, getting ready for the day, going into the Mount to teach, Mass and/or lunch. The afternoon is devoted to office hours, grading, answering emails, and perhaps some writing/editing a publication I am working on for an hour or less. In the evening, I will go home and eat dinner with the family and have time with them, plus [pray the] Rosary."
I come from a family with eight children, and I can attest to the importance of spending time together as a whole family, especially around dinner, and in making time to pray together. I find Dr. Turner’s dedication to his family, and always being intentional about making time for them despite his busy schedule as a professor very impactful; his vocation as a father is an inspirational sight.
In regard to why theology is an important aspect to the Mount’s curriculum, Dr. Turner said, "As St. John Henry Newman famously argued in his Idea of the University, no institute of higher education can be a university without the discipline of theology. Without an intellectual encounter with He Who Is, how can one tie together the investigation of all the things that are? This is why we teach theology: to know God and to know the world in relation to God."
In a question about advice offered to those interested in this field, Dr. Turner suggested to "be prepared to go through your graduate education for its own sake, because you will likely not find a position teaching theology at a Catholic university these days… it is not a rewarding career from the perspective of temporal goods. The lifetime earnings are low, though schools often have retirement plans and tuition benefits for children." I found this to be such an honest, and actually encouraging statement about the nature of a theologian; it iterated Dr. Turner’s expression on why teaching and studying theology occur in the first place: "to know God and to know the world in relation to God."
Dr. Turner reflected that it was incredibly hard work to arrive at his current position at the Mount, and none of it would have been possible without "the providence of God." Dr. Turner stated, "I have the great privilege of teaching theology as a layman. I am so happy to do this, even despite the obstacles and trials."
I took a higher-level theology course taught by Dr. Turner this summer which I sincerely enjoyed, and I am excited to take a bioethics course taught by him this fall. As someone pursuing theology, I am inspired by Dr. Turner’s witness and am so thankful for all the guidance he has provided for me as I move along with my studies.
Read other articles by McKenna Snow
Lost and found
Emmy Jansen
Class of 2023
Over the years, I have had many conversations that go a similar way: "I thought I wouldn’t like the Mount, but then I got here. . ." Prospective students and even first-years who’ve already deposited often have a sense of confusion about the university before the semester, but nevertheless, feel drawn to its doors. This is how it was for me. I didn’t even know why I applied, but suddenly I was moving into a dorm in Maryland, hours away from family and friends. There is something that pulls us here, something beyond ourselves that we cannot quite put a name to.
But we end up exactly where we need to be. Those feelings disappear and we find our home along the mountainside. I knew this was a common path for students, but this miraculous journey of traveling lost and becoming found is something possible for professors and administrators as well.
Dr. Carol Hinds took this sort of a path. Leaving Kansas to find a position anywhere, she thought the Mount would be a place to pause for only a few years. Twenty-five years later, that pause became a full stop. This is shocking to me, and perhaps for many students, because after so many years, it’s hard to imagine the university without her. She began as Provost, the chief academic officer of the university. She then transitioned back to being a professor in the English department and teaches courses in English and the Core Curriculum that is unique to the Mount. Because of her involvement in Core, many students will have crossed Dr. Hinds’s classroom before they’ve graduated.
Because the student population changes every four years, some pieces of history get lost. What a lot of students don’t realize when they’re sitting in class with Dr. Hinds is that she was one of the first females to hold a major administrative position at the Mount. We often forget that Mount St. Mary’s was a men’s college up until 1972. When Dr. Hinds was Provost in 1995, the alums of the college were almost entirely male. While female students had been attending for more than twenty years, it still sometimes felt like a ‘male’ college. She shared with me that one of her primary goals was to get more women in positions of leadership, and this has remained true to this day.
When professors get promoted to administrative positions, they frequently don’t return to the classroom. When Dr. Hinds left her position to teach English courses again, she was warned how much she would hate it because of how much the students would have changed in the time she was gone. "But the students hadn’t changed," she remarked to me. "Students are just as great as they always have been, especially Mount students."
One thing about Carol Hinds is that she is well-loved. I had heard raving reviews from upperclassmen so when it came time to register for courses, I selected her section for one of our Core classes. Their words of endearment could not have prepared me for what I would experience. Wrapped up in her wit and bluntness is a true passion for learning, which is not lost on many of her students. Whether it is intentional or not, I always feel myself called to be better when I’m around her. I know that I can study harder, achieve better things, and dream bigger than I had before. I’m called to a higher standard of thinking and being, which is what a liberal arts education is intended to teach you. Dr. Hinds is one of the most effective professors in this area, which is something I’m not sure she is aware of. The beauty of Dr. Hinds is that she’s just being herself.
What I think students love most about Dr. Hinds is her honesty. In an era of biting our tongues and sugarcoating everything we say, the blunt truth is readily welcomed. You’d think students would run from it, but we cling to it. There is something so remarkably beautiful about someone being so true to themselves, anytime or any place you see them. I know that the Dr. Hinds I experienced in the classroom is the same one from 1995 and the same one that will be teaching this upcoming semester. There is beauty in consistency. There is beauty in honesty.
Even in the short time I spent one on one with her for this article, I was called to be more of myself, the authentic self that she presents every day. When I asked her what advice she’d have for students, it was simple: "Take advantage of everything." With so many opportunities, we are often overwhelmed with the proliferation of choice and instead choose nothing. She shared that if young people were to throw themselves into things, without fearing social approval or abandonment, we’d actually like it. Dr. Hinds encapsulates the liberal arts education that the Mount strives to cultivate for students, with well-roundedness and overall thirst for knowledge in all disciplines. "Liberal arts minded people are never bored because they become engaged in whatever it is that’s around them," she shared.
And it is because Dr. Hinds, like liberal arts minded people, is always engaged in what is around her that she is herself inside and outside of the classroom. When the pursuit of knowledge and questions about the human condition are your life’s work, your work is your life. A casual conversation in the library or dining hall feels no different than discussions of texts in the classroom. There is only one Carol Hinds.
I know Dr. Hinds is exactly where she is needed, just as I am exactly where I need to be. We may not have imagined the life that would be created from this university, but it is hard to picture a life without it now. As one of the oldest faculty members, I couldn’t help but ask about her intentions at the Mount in the future, which many students have pondered anxiously. Her answer about her departure mimics my own, as with our stories of our arrivals: "Nothing else I could do would be more fun than this."
Read other articles by Emmy Jansen
A mentor and model
Harry Scherer
Class of 2022
On one cold Emmitsburg morning in January 2019, I jumped from classroom to classroom, expectantly waiting for each professor to distribute the syllabus and lay out the academic vision for the class. It’s a ritual I anticipate every semester, especially during my first year of college. At the end of my noon entry-level philosophy class that felt like it lasted for ten minutes, I turned to the woman sitting next to me and said, "wow, he’s awesome."
The man I was referring to was Josh Hochschild. My 18-year-old self did not know his expertise, position, or story. I just knew that he had something good to say, and I had time to listen.
Since that time almost three years ago, Dr. Hochschild has become my academic mentor, the director of the philosophy, politics, and economics (PPE) program, of which I am a part, and the model I consult during those times when I wonder how it’s possible to live well in contemporary higher education.
His academic credentials are impressive in themselves. After earning a bachelor’s degree from Yale and a PhD in philosophy at Notre Dame, he was offered a tenure-track philosophy position at both Wheaton College, an evangelical Protestant college in northeast Illinois, and at the Mount. After much deliberation, the then-Anglican philosopher took the position in Illinois in the fall of 2001. A few years into his tenure, he was received into the Catholic Church, "and," according to Hochschild, "there were many blessings associated with that, but staying at Wheaton wasn’t one of them." Hochschild left Wheaton in the spring of 2005.
He then applied again to be a part of the philosophy department at the Mount and the late Dr. Trudy Conway brought him on board for the fall of 2005. "It felt like I had been stubborn and not listening to God, but He was patient with me." Hochschild feels "doubly indebted" to Conway because she welcomed him to campus twice. When he arrived on campus 16 years ago, he was excited to teach in the liberal arts core curriculum and to teach philosophy to the younger seminarians. After a year of living in Fairfield, he moved his family to the house in which they currently reside within walking distance to campus.
The philosopher identifies the university’s core curriculum as one of strongest attributes of our identity: "I care a lot about choosing good texts and a good sequence of courses, but as long as you’re doing something with all the students together, you’re helping them to think as part of a community." He suggests that this sort of cooperative and mutually beneficial academic culture is becoming more of a rarity in higher education and identifies the Mount’s attention to the core curriculum as a "gift." Expanding the influence of university culture to that of our local and national culture, Hochschild says that this sort of common language can help build cohesion within a group of people who feel "increasingly alienated and feel like they don’t share anything with their fellow citizens."
This sort of community-building has been a priority for Hochschild throughout his tenure in Emmitsburg. When asked about his distinctive contribution to the Mount, he pointed to "an emphasis on identifying the connection between our religious and academic mission." He does not see a chasm between the Catholic mission and the liberal arts mission of the university, but rather a relationship of intricate interdependence.
Hochschild not only hopes that the two missions resonate but has invested in action on and off campus that emphasizes their distinct impact. This sort of integration was a priority for him while he was the dean of the College of Liberal Arts from 2009 to 2015 and while he and other faculty members were revising the core curriculum. "In a post-administrative career, it’s the kind of thing I’ve focused on writing and teaching, working with students, arranging conferences, and inviting speakers." With passion and conviction, he reminded me that "the idea of a university grew from the heart of the Church…and the Mount is uniquely positioned to be a university to help people remember that."
In addition to Trudy Conway, Hochschild credits the late Dr. Sue Goliber, professor emerita of history, in helping him clarify his understanding of the relationship between the religious and academic missions of the university. Hochschild recognized that "often the biggest champions aren’t even Catholic." This observation certainly applies to Goliber; while a Protestant, Goliber was "always a champion of the Mount being a Catholic university." This frequent reference to models and mentors was a consistent theme in my conversation with Dr. Hochschild.
It was these mentors who guided him in the ways of teaching college students. Today, he identifies, in an almost instinctual way, "the students" as the best part about teaching at the Mount. Hochschild does not view his relationship with students as one of information provision, but rather as one similar to a craftsman and an apprentice. "We do stuff together and we practice habits together." The art of education for Hochschild is highly personal and far removed from the more mainstream mercenary model of teaching and learning. Dr. Hochschild’s position as a philosophy professor is more than a job, but a vocation in the fullest sense of the word.
While continuing to discuss his place at the Mount, Hochschild identified the grotto as his favorite space on campus; "it was walking around there that I knew I was meant to be here, but I didn’t know why." After 16 years, Hochschild now knows that the reason he was meant to be here was that so "[his] wife could become a Catholic and teach here…That’s a good enough reason."
Dr. Hochschild’s unyielding emphasis on his mentors seems to be an indication that he is a learner as much as he is a teacher. He knows how to learn, and for that reason he knows how to teach other people to learn. Decades from now, I suspect a student writer at the Emmitsburg News-Journal will hear about Josh Hochschild serving as a mentor and model of real learning and exceptional teaching.
Read other articles by Harry Scherer
Emmitsburg boy
Angela Guiao
Class of 2021
Mount St. Mary’s University has been open for exactly 212 years. This year, exactly 2,362 students have been enrolled for both undergraduate and graduate degrees. The student- faculty ratio is 12:1 meaning that there is one professor for every 12 students enrolled at the Mount. If the math is done correctly, based off those statistics, it is safe to assume there are approximately 196 professors employed at the Mount today. But of those 196 professors, I believe one deserves very special recognition: Professor John Sherwin.
Professor Sherwin was born and raised in Emmitsburg, Maryland. He graduated from Mount St. Mary’s University with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting as a Summa Cum Laude and with a Master’s in Business Administration as a Cum Laude. He also graduated with a law degree from the University of Maryland in 1991, passing the bar exam on his first attempt the same year.
However, his accomplishments don’t end there. He also served in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War, where he received a Bronze Star which is awarded for "heroic or meritorious achievement or service." He has also earned his CPA (Certified Public Accountant) certification and his CFP (Certified Financial Planner) certification.
Professor Sherwin started his career as an accountant with Coopers and Lybrand, CPA where he would focus on bank acquisition audits. A few years later, he would move to Linton, Shafer, and Co, CPAs where he focused on tax preparation and governmental audits. Afterwards, Sherwin would rise to become the Assistant Comptroller of the Frederick County Board of Education (FCBOE) in 1978 and eventually the Comptroller of the FCBOE in 2000.
Shortly after he began his career as an accountant, Sherwin was approached by Dr. Ray Lauer, who at the time was the Dean of the Business School here at the Mount, to teach an evening accounting course. Though at first he was unsure whether he would enjoy teaching, he quickly found that he liked it very much. As a result, he taught part time from 1976 to 2005 and full time from 2005 until the present day, a total of 45 years.
With such an impressive résumé, I was curious what he considered to be his greatest achievement. To this, he answered that his greatest achievement occurred on March 6th, 1993, the day he married his wonderful wife, Beth. Professor Sherwin and his wife have two wonderful sons, Bob and Michael, and two dogs, Lucy and Coqui.
Sherwin currently resides in Frederick, but still very much considers himself to be an "Emmitsburg boy." He describes growing up in Emmitsburg as "idyllic. It was and is a wonderful place to grow up." He was surrounded by friends, neighbors, and family, including his parents and three sisters.
At the Mount, Sherwin teaches several accounting courses, including intermediate and advanced accounting. Though his past students acknowledge that he is "one of the harder accounting professors," they all agree that he is the "best teacher if you actually want to learn accounting." They also note his "great sense of humor" and his ability to make accounting "enjoyable"; Sherwin ensured that students were well prepared for a future in the industry by the time they left his class.
When asked what he would like to be remembered for, Sherwin replied that he would like to be remembered as a fair teacher who showed enthusiasm and a love for the subjects he taught.
Being that I myself am one of Professor Sherwin’s previous students, I must say that Sherwin is an inspiration. His enthusiasm and love for the subjects he taught were translated into engaging and memorable lectures. He made accounting fun, which many would consider to be a feat in itself. But not only that, he made learning fun as well.
There is a common misconception that accountants are boring. But boring is something that Sherwin could never be. His class quickly became my favorite class. I never missed a day unless I absolutely had to, and it was not because he was strict about attendance. It was because I wanted to be the best. Sherwin made you feel that way, like you could accomplish any dream you wanted to, like you could be the best at anything you put your mind to. He showed this to students by constantly encouraging them to grab opportunities and take control of their futures.
If you walk into Professor Sherwin’s office on the third floor of the Knott Academic Center, you will see his walls are covered with his student’s achievements. There are many knowledgeable teachers in the world, but there are few who genuinely care for their students once they step outside of the classroom. Sherwin is one of the rare professors that are both.
Mount St. Mary’s University has offered me a great number of opportunities, opportunities that I would not have access to had I gone to another school. Though, if I had to choose one opportunity that I am most grateful for, it would be the chance to have Professor Sherwin as a teacher.
A school’s greatest asset is its students, but good students are a product of great teachers. And Sherwin is a great teacher. It was an absolute honor to be able to take his class and to learn from one of the best.
On behalf of all previous accounting students, I’d like to thank you, Professor Sherwin, for preparing us to be great. Not only great accountants, but also great people and great students. Thank you for 45 years of teaching here at the Mount. It is because of teachers like you that students like me are able to achieve dreams that they once thought to be impossible. May you continue to inspire future accounting students to reach their fullest potential.
When asked for one piece of advice everyone should hear, Sherwin replied, "50% of life is showing up, and 50% of life is knowing when to shut up."
So, thank you, Professor Sherwin, for always showing up.
Read other articles by Angela Guiao
Read Past Editions of Four Years at the Mount
