How I Came to Be a Professor

After completing my undergraduate degree in Multidisciplinary Studies - film, literature, anthropology, Eastern philosophy - my life became a series of adventures, odd jobs, nomadic wandering, and lots of thinking (so basically, the life of a writer.) For the next five years, I traveled, worked, and lived abroad in Europe, South America, & Morocco. One summer night at an auberge in Boumalne du Dades, while eating fresh figs and lounging on a pile of pillows underneath the starry sky, two lovely Moroccans serenaded me with live music and plans to build a kasbah on the moon. It was then I realized my life was a true fairy-tale - far surpassing any fiction of my creation, and I felt deeply blessed to be living such a poetic existence on this planet. Even so, I felt suddenly driven to devote myself to the craft of story-telling, and after an intense spiritual awakening (first disguised as a dark night of the soul) I buckled down and decided it was time to apply to MFA programs.

Back in the States while waiting to hear from graduate schools, I momentarily panicked & searched for a more traditional career path. My efforts were not futile; on the very day UNLV offered me a fellowship to their International MFA Program, the CEO of a well-known travel company called to offer me a public-speaking gig with perks included a $200,000 salary and an apartment in Paris.

I called an old friend and pleaded, "What do I do!?"

He stated frankly, "Jaclyn, this is a 'for love or money' moment. I'm the kind of person who would take the money. You know what you're going to do." 

So I landed in Las Vegas. It wasn't easy at first - this city - but that's another story.
 
Part of my MFA fellowship involved teaching undergraduate students two courses per semester. It was the first time I'd taught, and I realized I had a knack for it. After I graduated, a colleague who taught in the Honors College asked if I could be his teaching assistant for a course over the summer. I agreed. All went well that summer until one morning when he grabbed me from the copy room and explained that one of his students was in the bathroom holding a razor blade to her wrist, threatening to take her own life.
 
I sometimes wonder if his future offer was a result of my intervention that day, because a week after I tiptoed into that bathroom and talked the distraught student back down to stability, my colleague informed me there would be a new Honors College Dean in the fall, and if he "planted" my CV on her soon-to-be desk, then when she came into office in the fall, she'd think I was meant to be interviewed to teach a course for the Honors College. I was in full support of this plan.

And it was a success. The new Dean interviewed me & allowed me to teach the first, multi-disciplinary seminar I'd ever created: Poetry, World & Spiritual Thought. 
 
When the semester was complete, I asked the Dean if there was any way I could continue teaching for her. She apologized and said, "no"...though shortly after that rejection, I was sent e-mails from both she & the Assistant Dean: "We just received your student reviews. We've never seen anything like this. Don't find alternate employment yet. Hold on."
 
So through that serendipitous sequence of life events, here I am - an Associate Professor in the UNLV Honors College.