Donovan Tann is a 2008 graduate of Eastern Mennonite University who now teaches courses in literature, writing and film at Hesston (Kansas) College. A member of the Lilly Graduate Fellows Program’s first cohort, he earned his English PhD at Temple University in Philadelphia.
How did your academic studies and professors at EMU prepare and inspire you for your graduate studies and/or current work?
Being able to have a faculty member as my advisor at EMU helped me to select coursework that interested me and which has contributed to my scholarship in unusual ways. I might not have taken as much interest in religion’s role in the early modern world without my introduction to theology course. I also had the flexibility to take senior English seminars in both French postmodern literature and transatlantic modernism, and these courses helped to prepare me for graduate school and to develop my voice as a literary scholar.
The mentorship that I received as a student, both formally through the honors program and informally within the language arts department, was crucial to my decision to pursue graduate study. I developed important intellectual virtues of critical thinking and reflection with my honors cohort, and I was honored to share an informal weekly lunch with Jay B. Landis in my last years at EMU. I’m immensely grateful for the way that my professors invested in me as a person and future teacher-scholar.
Donovan Tann 