Cole: Finding humor is key
By PIPER GALLAGHER- Student Reporter
Jared Cole was born in Oklahoma and first studied at Tulsa Community College and began studying public relations at Oklahoma State where he earned his degree in Journalism and Broadcasting.
After college he freelanced for about a year when he then decided the corporate lifestyle was not for him and he got a job at Langston University. This is where he found his passion for teaching, which lead him to pack his bags and go to Virginia Tech to earn his master’s degree. After teaching as an adjunct professor in Michigan, he moved back to Oklahoma to be closer to home and continue teaching.
He is “super excited to be here” and has so far been “super impressed with the student body.”
Q: What sold you on coming to NWOSU?
A: I don’t want to say I wasn’t that interested, but I was a little bit hesitant, just as far as it being kind of in the western part of Oklahoma, kind of 70 miles away from civilization, but once I got through the initial online interviews and they invited me on campus, just as I was driving through the small towns and seeing things like the Salt Plains, and then driving to town it just kind of felt right. I can’t explain that in any way, shape, or form, other than it felt right.
When I interviewed with everyone in the communications department, it was a really good comradery, and there was a good chemistry among the four of us. It just felt like the right opportunity to be able to teach what I want to teach. A lot of times, other colleges I looked into just had speech communications or interpersonal communication and it was the big schools that needed a PhD to teach things like strategic communications. So having that opportunity to teach what I wanted to teach and a really good environment and a healthy professional environment was really what attracted me to Northwestern.
Q: What is one of the first goals you hope to accomplish here?
A: My goal is to establish a baseline relationship with my students in the sense of I want to be known as someone who has the answers to not just the questions in the classroom but who can actually help them with their academic goals outside of the classroom. I want to be able to be the resource to my students to connect them to either the right person or the right information or the right any sort of answer I can find to help them achieve something and be ready to accomplish and thrive in whatever industry they decide to work in.
Q: What is your favorite class to teach and why?
A: Right now, it is the intro to speech communication. It’s so far the most rewarding because, particularly here, it’s a bunch of freshmen with various majors, so they’re not only just barely into their field of study, but barely into college all together, and so being able to see their transformation from day 1. Seeing that growth and seeing that confidence and them grow to be something more than they thought they could be is incredibly rewarding, especially when most of them are there because they have to be. But they can start seeing the benefits of learning how to speak confidently in public and that is very, very rewarding.
Q: What is your “superpower”?
A: I think being able to provide humor in every situation is the catalyst in helping bridge the gap between two people. Being able to identify and understand each other and being able to see things from a different angle, and just kind of having that secret tool of helping. If you can find the humor in things, you can find the relatability in anything. So, if you can laugh at something, if you can laugh at me, laugh at the subject, you can have a deeper understanding, and it kind of breaks down barriers. So, I will always try my hardest to find humor in every single thing.”
Q: What is something most people don’t know about you?
A: A lot of people don’t know that I am actually very, very shy and timid. I’m scared to death of opening my mouth and proving how dumb I think I am. It’s an interesting dichotomy, seeing just how much I have to be on, as far as being in front of my students, but in a personal setting where I’m trying to get to know them, and it takes much much longer because I am scared to death of every single student. So I am putting myself out there, especially students and if anyone reads this, the students are knowing now.
