Marsh Guiding Students Through Past to Future

Jennifer Moore, staff writer

 

Marsha Marsh believes that she is teaching students the fundamentals of performing well in future college courses.

With a career that started in high school, she views teaching as a responsibility to students.

"Teaching is a responsibility people have who love learning," said Marsh, who is in her second year as a history and geography instructor at South Plains College. "Giving back the understanding and knowledge one has gained through school is important, and so is the chance to positively influence others in a more wide-ranging way than most people have a chance to do. Since learning has been such an important part of my life for so long, teaching seems a natural vocation, too."

Marsh has earned several degrees. She earned her A.B., a bachelor of arts degree, from Harvard University in Linguistics and Computer Science in 1989. She went on to attend graduate school, studying astrophysics at the University of Maryland, and studied for a doctoral degree at the University of Wyoming, but did not finish.

In 1993, Marsh came to SPC to study commercial music and graduated in 1995 with highest honors. She later earned a master's degree in environmental evaluation, an interdisciplinary degree in natural resources management and policy in 1998 she was studying for a doctorate in land use, planning, management and design when she was hired by SPC as the Learning Center lab instructor.

She was awarded a Regents Scholarship to the Texas Tech University School of Law in 1995, but did not attend. In 2001, she enrolled in Concord University Law School online for a semester, and has most recently been working toward a master of arts degree in history at Tech.

Marsh began her teaching career in high school as a math teaching assistant in a special program for gifted students. She also taught one summer at the Talent Identification Program at Duke University. She then went on to serve as a graduate teaching assistant in astronomy at Maryland and Wyoming while she was a graduate student. When she attended SPC, she served as a tutor in music theory and math.

Marsh believes that her classes and others at SPC will help prepare students for college courses and life experiences later on.

"At least in the academic, non-technical programs, students are not at SPC primarily to learn specific facts or a body of knowledge, although we all hope they'll remember what we're teaching them, at least until the end of the semester," she said. "Speaking realistically, most of those facts will probably soon be forgotten. Instead, they are here to train their brains to think in a certain critical way -- an approach that they'll use in other courses, in their job experiences, in their personal decision-making -- to thinking, since they'll use that same brain they bring to my class to think about everything they do from now on."

In order to learn these lessons, Marsh believes that attendance is an important element in a  student’s success.

“I advise them [students] to come to class,” she said.  “They might learn something.  Meaning, they might learn something, even if it's not what they expect to get in that class. I tell them, you never know when something a teacher says, or a question a classmate asks, might make you think of something  else.  Understanding something else from that same course, making a connection with something you're studying in another course, or fitting together as a whole some set of things you've been thinking about in school or life. That kind of connection can only happen if you're in class.”

In addition to teaching history, Marsh also has interests in the study of history, as well as some more diverse pursuits.

“My interests include the history and culture of New Mexico, especially northern New Mexico,” she said.  “Also, my current professional and research interest include hiking and being outside, xeriscape gardening and reading, especially about Western history and the Western environment.  I don't consider reading a hobby, though, and cats. I have traveled to Nepal, India, and Kashmir, including hiking to, but not up, Mt.. Everest, and continue to be interested in the culture of that region of the world. I like to play and listen to klezmer music, as well as still being interested in bluegrass. I am interested in the history and culture of my native Appalachia too.“

Marsh has also won a Golden Reel Award for female Bluegrass Vocalist of the Year in 1995 and 1996.  She has served in the faculty senate and was vice-president and president-elect in 2002 and 2003

Marsh said that SPC 's growth over the years has not overshadowed the small-school closeness.

"SPC is a family," she said. "It has been my family for 12 years. The people are wonderful, and I feel part of something special. Even though we've grown so much, the school is still small enough that everyone knows everyone else, and we get to know and care about our students in a way that is meaningful to them as well because our classes are so small."