Know Your Profs is an ongoing series of profiles on the instructors at Camosun College. Every issue we ask a different instructor at Camosun the same 10 questions in an attempt to get to know them a little better.
Do you have an instructor who you want to see interviewed in the paper? Email editor@nexusnewspaper.com and we’ll add your instructor to our list of teachers to talk to.
This issue we talked to Visual Arts instructor John Boehme about inclusivity, the importance of art, and his love of bento.
1. What do you teach and how long have you been at Camosun?
I currently teach ART 103 [Introduction to 3D Artmaking], ART 140 [Visual Foundations 3D Design], ART 142 [Sculpture], ART 260 [Performance Art: The Body as a Generator of Art], ART 144 [Ceramics 1], and ART 240 [Ceramics 2]. I have been teaching at Camosun since 2000.
2. What do you personally get out of teaching?
Satisfaction knowing that learners understand that art is integral to a thorough awareness of self and the world we live in.
3. What’s one thing you wish your students knew about you?
That I am 55 years old and not 35 years old.
4. What’s one thing you wish they didn’t know about you?
That I am 55 years old and not 35 years old.
5. What’s the best thing that’s ever happened to you as a teacher here?
Being awarded the Distinguished Alumni Award in 2013 and getting hired to teach full-time Visual Art at Camosun College.
6. What’s the worst thing that has ever happened to you as a teacher?
My classroom at UVic was changed at the last minute to a different location, and [UVic] didn’t inform me for the first three classes, so the students went to one classroom while I was waiting in another classroom alone.
7. What do you see in the future of post-secondary education?
Intersectionally aware, non-binary, inclusive, non-hierarchal, trans-disciplinary learning modules.
8. What do you do to relax on the weekends?
Surf with my children.
9. What is your favourite meal?
Reindeer bento box.
10. What’s your biggest pet peeve?
Non-inclusivity, wastefulness, entitlement.