This time last year, Mary Anne posted “Mary’s Teaching Pie,” and more recently, Lore posted “A Cake Made of Purpose”, which inspired me to write a recipe post of my own. If my work at GCC were a recipe, it would be a pie: A GCC Pot Pie, a recipe for something warm, structured, and nourishing.
Every semester, when I step into the metaphorical kitchen of GCC, a hot and busy location filled with activities and opportunities, I am delighted at what is produced. My GCC kitchen is the classroom, the Gaucho Urban Garden, the faculty senate meetings, and the “pit” where the dragons are slain.
Pot pie isn’t particularly glamorous or exciting. Rather, a hot pot pie is something warm and wonderful; humble, hearty, and made with care. It is a golden crust holding together the hot, tasty filling. It is my work at GCC.
The Crust
A good crust is firm but not rigid. It holds the shape without immediately crumbling under pressure, and provides a foundation for the rest of the pie. This would be the structure, the rubrics, defined expectations, and purposeful lessons.
Starting the Filling
Students walk into the classroom carrying their doubts and fears; their worries and expectations. So a gravy of patience is necessary to loosen it up. Encouragement is necessary to make that gravy thick and hearty.
Mentoring students, being willing to work with them even after the classes are done, encouraging them to reach their potential, and having them continue to stop by years after they have completed my courses with the knowledge that they are always welcome, that is one good gravy. It is my way of keeping the kitchen warm enough to help those students rise.
Fold in Vegetables
GCC sits in a food desert, one of many around our state. I have talked many times about my work with the English students in the Gaucho Urban Garden. Well, my time with Dr. Angela Schwendiman and Mr. Jared Mann has led to conversations and now action on the creation of a campus food forest. The food forest will be a living statement that we grow what our community needs. I have had the pleasure to watch my students grow in more ways than one as they help to plant and harvest vegetables and fruits as part of their research. And their involvement in this burgeoning project is more than a little exciting.
Then there is the club work. Being a club advisor is incredibly rewarding, particularly when the other advisors are from different departments. The Dungeons and Dragons Knights of Pen and Paper club offers the students a place where they can find fellowship. Students who might otherwise be reluctant readers are transformed into storytellers, and recently, the club collaborated with the library on a club READ poster. These students are declaring quite clearly, “We Belong at GCC”. This is a literal and metaphorical folding in of vegetables.
Seasoning
Faculty senate work is a seasoning. As a faculty senator, I try to make sure my colleagues’ voices are heard and carried into rooms where decisions are made. I bring back concerns and try to make sure those concerns are addressed.
The Secret Ingredient
The thing that makes this pot pie work is one special ingredient. Belonging. Belonging is the focus of my doctoral research, and the longer I study it, the more I see it in everything I do. The students who keep coming back because they feel welcomed; the D&D tables filled with different ages, backgrounds, cultures, and majors; the garden where composition lessons have become something the students can hold in their hands; the classroom where every week the students are reminded that they are supposed to be there, that they belong. Research tells us that students who feel like they belong are engaged, take risks, and persist. They come to class, to the garden, to the D&D tables because they feel like they belong to something special. We Gaucho Back has solid meaning.
Belonging isn’t a seasoning or a garnish; it is in every layer: the crust, the gravy, the vegetables, even the seasoning. It can’t be tasted in isolation because it is what makes this pot pie work.
In my recipe, belonging is the first thing added, and the last.
Bake and Serve
Spoon all that wonderful goodness into the shell and lay the top crust over, pressing down the edges. This dish has a lot going on inside, so there needs to be a few vents to allow it to breathe. Bake in Arizona temperatures. When the crust is a golden brown and the filling bubbles up through the vents, it is ready to serve.
Make sure to serve while still warm. Pot Pie is best while it is still piping hot.
That is my recipe for the work I do at GCC.
Bon Appétit!