Dana Morgan

Professor

“I’d just about given up. Isn’t that sad? So I thought, ‘Well, if I’m going to be a part-timer the rest of my life, at least let me be at SMC!’”

She need not have worried, as it turns out. After four years teaching part time at SMC, Dana Morgan was given the nod and is now a full-time faculty member. And that’s not something that a lot of people know about the teachers at SMC. They’ll go that extra mile

and jump extra hoops for the sake of the pure pleasure of waking up and saying “Wow! I’m going to work in one of the best teaching colleges in all of education!” For Dana, her arrival at her “dream circumstance” was a circuitous one.

“SMC is an entire second career for me, as I’d worked in television—on programs like ‘Happy Days!’—then NBC, and on to development of sit-coms and Movies of the Week. Then I had kids,” she says with a laugh. “So I decided that a new career in teaching would be a good fit, and simply went wholeheartedly after my Master’s degree. Until I came to SMC,” she adds, “my community was always whatever show I was working on. And then you all say goodbye. But now I have a pretty clear picture of what is best for me, and this is it! Teaching at SMC is my first choice in the entire country.”

Dana states that “among the best things at SMC is the collegiality that exists here; not just among the academics, but also with the staff and support people. People here enjoy their work—whatever it is.” And Dana is little short of evangelical about her own work. “I think that teaching how to write is the most important thing in the world,” she exclaims. “Students are gonna be a little shaken up and challenged in my classes. But it’s gonna be fun, interesting, and ultimately give them the ability to connect with other people’s lives because of the power of their words.”

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