Shelbie Harris
Staff Writer
Visiting Assistant Professor of English Robert Watkins is so new to the Department of English and Philosophy at Idaho State University that the box his desktop computer came in still rests in the corner of his office.
Watkins always knew he wanted to be a professor, he just didn’t foresee it happening at the collegiate level, especially somewhere as close to home as ISU.
“I always wanted to teach and I’ve been teaching for seven years,” said Watkins. “I finished my undergraduate degree at Utah State, and am from Logan, Utah, so [ISU] is so close to home it feels kind of like home. I just recently finished my Ph.D so this will be my first time teaching as a full-time professor.”
After finishing his undergraduate degree, Watkins went to work at a printing company.
He enjoyed the work he did but didn’t find the normalcy of working eight to five as interesting or challenging as he imagined.
“I realized that what I enjoyed most about my degree in technical writing was actually the theory and discussions, so I thought I should go back to school and start teaching,” said Watkins.
Initially, Watkins aspired to teach high school students.
However, he soon realized with a degree in technical writing that wasn’t much of a possibility.
“Teaching high school students seemed fun but in reality once I started teaching college I realized how much I preferred teaching college [students],” said Watkins. “My wife teaches high school, and I didn’t realize how much of high school was actually just disciplining, and I would have been terrible at that. College students are there because they want to be.”
After completing his undergraduate and Master’s degrees at Utah State University in 2005 and 2008, respectively, Watkins completed his Ph.D. in Rhetoric & Professional Communication at Iowa State University in 2014.
Watkins’ focus for his dissertation involved using comics as a mode for introducing students to visual literacy by both reading and creating comics of their own.
“Comic books are a great source of learning because they combine visuals and the written information in a way most mediums don’t, and in a way that seems to be very effective,” said Watkins. “A lot of research shows we can learn from [comics] in a way that seems to be more effective than others.”
Watkins focused on using comics as a production method. He had his students read comics to learn from them and then take a previous writing assignment from the semester such as an essay and turn it into a comic.
A few of his personal favorite comics include “American Born Chinese” and “Y: The Last Man.”
The non-fiction work “Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art” by cartoonist Scott McCloud was inspirational to Watkins.
In addition to comics, music has always been important to Watkins. He grew up playing instruments including the drums, guitar, and synthesizer for multiple bands and has even recorded music used in smartphone apps.
Outside of comics, music and teaching, Watkins is glad to be at ISU with his family close to him. He’s been married since 2004 to his wife, who is also a teacher, and together they have three children.
Emery his eldest boy is six, Grayson, also a boy, is four, and his six-week-old baby girl whom Watkins referred to as “brand new”, is named Willow.
“Now that I’m out west I’m really excited to be back in the mountains. I’m excited to start mountain biking, hiking, and skiing again,” said Watkins.
