When I was putting together my application for promotion to professor here at East Tennessee State University, I was having a bit of difficulty writing my teaching philosophy. I had written one a number of years ago, back when I applied for my position here, and I had, of course, read a number of them in my serving on many hiring committees for my department. I was struggling with this particular one, though. I wound up writing a personal account, describing how key professors in my own experience as a student shaped the way I teach and think about students. I just could not separate myself from the document enough to determine whether I had what I needed.
Fortunately, as I was walking around campus on that Saturday, clearing my head a bit away from the keyboard, I found Karen Cajka coming in to get some work done in the Women's Studies office. As we were talking, she found out how I was stuck and offered to look at what I had written. I returned to my office and e-mailed her a draft; half an hour later, she invited me to come over to her office to talk about it.
Karen had a lot of strengths as a teacher, and one was that she was up to date on the education jargon I do not know. Her review of my teaching philosophy document was essentially taking what I had described and explaining what terms I needed to include in introducing those experiences. With her background in education, her understanding of what reviewers might be looking for, and her appreciation of nuance--she didn't ask me to change my writing voice, just to incorporate more terms--her suggestions helped me feel more confident in expressing how I go about teaching. Clearly, one of her other strengths as a teacher was to help others understand how they, too, are teachers. I will always be grateful for her helping me to put that understanding into words.
It's the other stuff that is difficult for words now. Karen and I disagreed on a lot of small things. I am a morning person, and she just did not care to start the day so early. We disagreed about whether first-semester composition students should have creative literature for a subject ("We're not trying to make them into English majors, Alan!"). We disagreed about traditional grammar teaching methods, as well, in spite of my pointing out the irony of her being an expert in The Forgotten Women Grammarians of Eighteenth-Century England. We've had good-spirited, but definitely spirited, arguments over the modern tendency to offer "their" as a catch-all referent to any singular noun (as in Karen's preferred "The student has their priorities" instead of my preferred "The student has his or her priorities" or "The students have their priorities"). "Language evolves, Alan!" she'd say, and I would concede it does. It does. But these exchanges, friendly back-and-forth stuff, really, were nothing compared to her ability to persuade folks on major points. I have served on many committees with Karen, from revamping our department's composition series for first-year students, to refining our curriculum for the next decade, to selecting new faculty members to join us in our department, and Karen was always armed with all the information she could get, often with charts and tables to illustrate what she had discovered. I have also turned to her more than a few times when I had questions about particular social issues where I did not want to reduce my wrestling with a problem to mere categorization. For the longest time, for example, we discussed whether "ginger" is a derogatory term in reference to a group of people. She understood how seriously I was taking that question and helped me deal with it.
Karen's professional accolades do not offer a full picture. She has influenced too many people to count. Just Karen--her students adore her, her colleagues admire her and depended on her, and her friends are having such a difficult time now, starting back up. She knew what was needed and how to help.
A few months ago, for example, when I was feeling dogged and blue, she asked me what was going on. And I explained, aside from the administrative and professional stuff that was going on at work that home life was shifting, with firstkid's soon moving away to college, and my needing to pick up even more household responsibility with my wife's returning to school on top of her full-time job, and the younger two kids' having so many activities requiring my logistics. After I described my usual day, she laughed and said, "Alan, you're a working mom." From a director of a women's studies division, that's a pretty high compliment. From a friend like Karen, though, it was affectionate understanding. She was so good at seeing how things matter, and her advice was direct and clear and thoughtful.
She laughed without reserve, she had a facial tic of twitching her nose once or twice to indicate she was thinking, and she agreed with a happy, embracing "I know!" Yes, she did. She knew a lot, and we were all fortunate she shared it with us, and we will preserve as much of it as we can.
I haven't written how I feel about her, but she knows.
Karen Cajka, 1966-2011 offers a tribute by our colleague, Phyllis Thompson.
For another fine appreciation of Karen, please see this entry on Amber Kinser's blog.
