On the basement floor of Lamson Library, where students are reading and sipping coffee in the newly constructed café lounge, past columns of books and computer stations, through a door marked “Reading and Writing Center,” one will find a small hallway with a room to the right. The room is a makeshift classroom that appears a bit uninspired. There are tables stacked upon each other in the back, the same tables used to construct a large square which students sit behind in wheeling computer chairs; with no windows to the outside world and bland whitewashed walls, which have pieces of bright colored paper sporting quotes from ancient literature taped upon them, a single box fan hums in unison with a student who is reading his creative writing homework assignment. He reads aloud a humorous tale of a London prison guard who was trying to coax a confession out of a non-compliant prisoner- complete with a British accent. Although the room itself may be bland, it continuously burst out in laughter every few minutes, and the first laugh heard is of the teacher, Liz Ahl.
“When I was a kid I wanted to be a teacher, I wasn’t exactly sure why,” said professor, poet, and since this last spring, the new Chairperson of the Plymouth State University English Department. Dr. Elizabeth Ahl of Bridgewater, New Hampshire. Ahl is a graduate of Emerson College with a B.F.A in Creative Writing and the University of Pittsburgh with a M.F.A in creative writing who has been teaching in some facet since 1992.
“Going to grad-school was paid for by teaching. I got a teaching assistantship, which meant that my tuition was paid for and I got teaching grants and I got paid to teach. And, at that point I hadn’t thought about being a teacher, I had only thought about being a writer but I got to spend some time in classrooms, first, teaching a lot of composition and then working my way into creative writing,” said Ahl, who followed a similar routine while going for her P.h.D as the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL).
The recipient of the Thompson Fellowship, UNL, 1998-99 and Full Graduate Fellowship, UNL,1999-2000, Ahl, came to PSU in 2001 after applying for 89 different teaching positions, because, as she stated frankly, “You just read the job ads, send your stuff out and see what happens. It’s a tight job market for P.h.D’s in English out there.”
On her initial visit to PSU she ended up getting snowed in and had a few extra days to spend observing the area and getting to meet the faculty, staff and the students who she really enjoyed. She accepted the offer of Assistant Professor and was pleased because she now had the opportunity to teach poetry and creative writing courses, two areas that she especially wanted to focus on. Nowadays though, as an associate professor with tenure in her sixth year, you won’t find Ahl in the classroom as much. instead of teaching four classes a semester she now teaches two, for a new slew of responsibilities await her as Chairperson of the English Department.
Every three years, the English Department holds elections for the Chairperson position, and when Professor Arthur Fried’s term as Chairperson was up, he decided not to run for reelection, so, as Ahl put it, “I tossed my hat in the ring.” Still, there wasn’t much of an election this past spring because no one else ran against Ahl, “There was not a lot of political intrigue involved. I feel like I’m taking a turn at it.”
“I always find it fun to do something new, I find it interesting and often energizing to do something different,” she said.
Since she now teaches Tuesdays and Thursdays-creative writing and a poetry workshop- she’s not quite sure if more of her time is necessarily being taken up. A typical day when she’s not teaching consists of her arriving to her office at about 8:00 a.m. and starting the day by answering e-mails. From there, she reviewed the teaching history of adjunct professors for the past year and a half, then she spent time making up a schedule and also met with a couple of faculty members. After lunch, she met with a graduate student, observed a professor in the classroom, then sat down for an hour and conducted an interview later that afternoon.
“I like representing the English department, I think I’m a descent talker and a pretty diplomatic person,” she said. Ahl also acts as the representative figure for the English department. For example, every other week she attends the Council of Chairs meeting with all the department Chairpersons across campus. She’s also responsible for much of the intricate detailing that goes on within the department. Although Mary Hart and Professor Paul Rogalus are helping in certain areas such as budgeting and course scheduling, Ahl still has a lot to deal with,
“I’m responsible for developing the department, meeting agendas, and sort of the whole semester agenda, there’s meeting with the vice president, there’s scheduling the adjuncts, there’s observing the adjuncts, there’s a lot to do with just making sure the teaching is going well; personnel issues, I had to get the ball rolling on a couple of search committees, I developed an Adjunct faculty orientation handbook.”
She went on to say, “I feel like I’ve spent a lot of time working, and yet there’s still so much more work that I have to do in terms of curriculum stuff, figuring out when to offer certain courses.”
In regards to her new position in the English department, Ahl said, “In general, I feel good about it. It’s not as much fun as teaching, it’s a different kind of work than teaching,” and suggested jokingly as she laughed, “It’s nice to have only two classes ’cause I’m learning their names quicker.”
Yet, being a teacher and the new Chairperson are only two parts of Ahl’s life. She is the daughter of a retired naval officer and a former physical education teacher, as well as the older sister of a graphic designer who all live in Washington State. She’s a photography enthusiast, who enjoys autumn and the natural beauty that this season unleashes in New Hampshire, and she enjoys her music with an electric edge. There’s one more aspect of Ahl’s personality, which is central to her nature: she’s a poet.
“I think you have to be a person who pays attention; a lot of poetry, in my mind, is attention and observation of detail,” said Ahl, in terms of what she believes it takes to be a poet, “I think you have to be a big geek for words.”
This past month, on the fifth anniversary commemorating the tragic events of 9-11, Ahl was invited to read a poem she had written back in 2001, mere days after the event in reaction to what she had seen and experienced. Professor of music, Jonathan Santore, had approached Ahl with the idea of wanting to compose a piece of music with her poem in mind, to be read at Hanaway Theatre, in Silver Cultural Arts Center on campus. Originally, Ahl had unveiled the piece in the fall of 2001 at a campus forum, were she read it and was then asked by the public relations people if they could publish it in the winter issue of the PSU magazine and she agreed. So, Ahl left the original version of the poem alone, initially intending to revise it and “tighten” it as she explained; she read the piece to a packed Hanaway Theatre, the largest audience she had ever read in front of before, and received a standing ovation. “It was an incredible experience reading with the musicians, to such a crowd, on such an emotionally wrought and politically wrought occasion. And so, I’m grateful for the experience.”
Throughout Ahl’s poetic career, she has been published 55 times, in such publications as the Crab Orchard Review (2000, 2005) and The Women’s Review of Books (April 2002); she has also been invited to read on 19 different functions such as last years 135th Birthday Celebration of PSU. “I like all kinds of poetry, from all kinds of areas and all kinds of people. I like poetry that is really conscious of connecting with an audience, poetry with a very strong voice,” said Ahl, who often writes autobiographical poems with historical and cultural connections in free verse, two of her favorite contemporaries being Cornelius Eady and Adrienne Rich. She believes poetry to be an art form, and that you can’t teach inspiration or turn someone into a best selling author, but rather you can help someone learn technique, craft, and how to develop a strong work ethic as a writer. And, when asked to offer up any words of wisdom to a future generation of writers, she said, “Read, read, read!”
Although students might not see Ahl as much in the classroom, she’ll still be around-whether in her office advising or working through scheduling decisions, meeting with personnel, observing professor’s in the classroom, or possibly shifting her attention towards the atmosphere around her so she can develop new ideas for a poem or two. In the end, Ahl’s satisfied with the present, the Chairperson’s position and all it entails, and is looking forward to her future at Plymouth State University as well as her career as poet.