Impactful Teaching and Research
As part of an initiative to recognize impactful research, teaching and creative scholarship across Idaho State University campuses, two faculty who have made meaningful contributions in these key focus areas are being honored each month during the academic year.
Impactful Teaching
STEVEN HALL, PhD
Clinical Associate Professor
Bengal Bridge, Academic Success and Advancement Programs
As a member of the Bengal Bridge team since 2015, Dr. Hall balances a variety of responsibilities including teaching, mentoring and advising students, recruitment. For the past ten years he has taught ACAD 1104 (First Year Transition), ACAD 3310 (Efficient Reading), ACAD 1111 (Information Inquiry and Literacy), and each Summer during Bengal Bridge he teaches a section of English 1101/1101P.
Dr. Hall first arrived at ISU as a doctoral student of English where he researched and wrote a dissertation examining the intersections of literature, agriculture, food, and nature. During his program of study he was overwhelmed by the personal and professional mentoring he received from so many accomplished teachers and researcher from the Department of English. This experience highlighted for him one of ISU’s greatest virtues (in his eyes) that he continues to pass on to high school students and ISU undergraduates alike: this is an institution that is big enough to provide a vast array of excellent programs and resources but small enough to provide individualized care and mentoring to students.
Because he works with so many students who are in their first semester of college, Dr. Hall believes strongly in the important of setting a proper tone for a student’s higher education experience. While this includes establishing certain expectations of performance, he also places great emphasis on establishing a classroom environment where students can feel comfortable and seen, which he hopes will entice students to become confident enough to actively engage in discussions. Rather than a gatekeeper to knowledge, Dr. Hall sees himself as a guide and mentor to students, not just relating to one course but to general habits of learning, reading, and asking difficult questions He sees himself as a lifelong student and hopes he can convey to students that a well-rounded education can do more for them than just provide an income. Higher education should provide skills and habits of critical thinking that will enable students to engage with and contribute to society.
[Dr. Hall] gave good direction and gave me a better understanding of English. He was one of my first instructors that made writing make sense. He was great at explaining assignments, easy to talk to, and very helpful. The content of this course helped me to further myself as a writer.”
“The strongest point in this class to me was that he explained the purpose behind why we needed to do something. He made the class realize that there was an actual purpose to what we were writing and it wasn't just because we had to meet a requirement.”
— Students from Dr. Hall's courses
Impactful Research
MATTHEW LEVAY
Professor of English
Department of English and Philosophy
Matthew's research takes a fresh approach to modernism—the flourishing of experimentalism in
the arts through the first half of the twentieth century—by examining that moment’s avant-garde in relation to the popular culture that surrounded and informed it. His research is proudly interdisciplinary, showing how a variety of twentieth-century figures–from novelists and editors to cartoonists and filmmakers–blended elements of experimental and popular forms to achieve lasting effects, shaping the media landscape of the early twentieth century in ways we are only beginning to recognize.
Matthew's goal is to provide a richer sense of culture in the early twentieth century by exploring how various media forms--novels, magazines, newspapers, comic books, films, etc.--affected one another, and their readers. His work draws upon fields like media history, periodical studies, comics studies, book history, and film studies in order to make the case that modernism did not exist in isolation from popular culture, but instead must be understood as one of many forms of creative expression vying for attention within a noisy, diverse modern culture.
Matt Levay’s brilliant work is at the forefront of research on twentieth and twenty-first century popular culture and modernism. From comics to periodicals to crime fiction, Levay has shown us how to understand their characteristic forms and cultural significance. His work is central to how scholars of comics, periodicals, and modernism understand such vital phenomena as seriality, anachronism, and criminality, as well as the relationship between early twentieth century modernism and popular culture. He is a leader in multiple fields, as well as a deeply respected and sought-after collaborator.”
— Elizabeth Sheehan (The Ohio State University)