Jody Keahey’s Reflection:
This summer I had the pleasure of interning for Dr. Seemee Ali with the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture. I was onboarded by the Dallas Institute to aid in the planning and orchestration of the Sue Rose Summer Institute, an event held annually by the Dallas Institute that offers free professional development hours and optional graduate school credit to Dallas-area public and private school teachers. The mission of the program is to care for teachers and provide them with an opportunity to continue their learning through the study of literature. This year, Sue Rose focused on the “epic,” and the readings included The Iliad, The Odyssey, and a variety of other epic texts. Despite the obvious surface-level benefits of this program, I found the most impactful part to be the connections that I made with both the people responsible for putting on the program and those who were participants in it.
I witnessed firsthand as participants became impassioned by texts they thought they could not or would not have any interest in at the beginning of the program, and saw how this extended beyond the classroom. I fondly remember one of the teachers telling me she had “never felt so smart in her life” and, as the program progressed, watched her become increasingly interested in the material and confident when engaging with it. This was an extremely rewarding experience to be a part of for those external reasons, but I also felt my internship this summer was incredibly useful for my own professional development. I not only got to meet people who are invaluable for their contributions to the Dallas cultural landscape, but also interact with them to learn how to eventually make meaningful contributions myself. I also learned a number of useful clerical and technical skills in helping plan this event; learning these skills was an unforeseen but welcome advantage.