Breaking the Ice With Millikin Professors

Icebreakers, you either love them or you hate them. Regardless of your feelings about them, teachers everywhere make you do them on the first day of classes. “What’s your name?”, “Where are you from?”, and “What is your favorite color?” are some of the millions of questions students have to answer. So I decided I would have some professors at Millikin answer some of these generic questions and share some insight:

Professor Alex Rasmussen

Dr. Allen Rasmussen, Visiting Assistant English Professor

Q: Favorite movie?

A: The Wizard of Oz

Q: Favorite place in Decatur?

A: “I moved here in August, so honestly, I don't yet,” Rasmussen says.

Q: Favorite artist or genre of music?

A: Folk music, and they also like Joan Baez.

Q: Advice for Millikin students?

A: “Plan ahead,” Rasmussen says. “You're young, you're still in the process of figuring out how to organize your time, and it's so important to start figuring out how to do that, because that's going to help you in class, and it's going to help you later in life.”

Q: Favorite author?

A: “It varies from time to time,” Rasmussen says. “At the moment, I'm kind of into Langston Hughes.”

Dr. Emily Olson

Dr. Emily Olson, Associate Professor of Mathematics

Q: Favorite movie?

A: Inside Out

Q: Favorite place in Decatur?

A: “I really like basically all the parks, and so I'll just pick the one right by campus, [Fairview], because I think that the walking/running trail is like a really nice little getaway that's not even that far,” Olson says.

Q: Favorite artist or genre of music?

A: “I'll pick movie soundtracks, because they usually combine a bunch of different artists into one vibe, and so that is sometimes what I go to,” Olson says.

Q: Advice for Millikin students?

A: “Show up,” Olson says. “That's going to be in a few different ways. One of them is to show up to your classes and show up to office hours. And so, looking at your academic side, showing up will get you really far. But then show up for a club you've never tried before, or a different group, or sit somewhere else, because then you can get to meet new people. I think that that's a really valuable part of the college experience.”

Q: Favorite mathematical formula?

A: One of the Pythagorean identities, specifically: sin²(x) + cos²(x) = 1. “I think it combines something that people know already about triangles with new things they're learning,” Olson says. “So I really like doing that one in class, because it kind of combines old info with brand new info in a way that we can really use moving forward in that class.”

Side note: Dr. Olson had this formula on her shirt the day I went to talk to her. How great is that?

Professor Sarah Drake

Prof. Sarah Drake, Assistant Professor of Communication, and the Oral Communication Director

Q: Favorite movie?

A: Casablanca, Fletch, and Steel Magnolias.

Q: Favorite place in Decatur?

A: “Besides Millikin, of course, I really enjoy the Gin Mill,” Drake says.

Q: Favorite artist or genre of music?

A: “I like most kinds of music, [but I’m] not a big country fan,” Drake says. “Alternative Rock is still probably my favorite, and my favorite band is probably My Morning Jacket or Tame Impala.”

Q: Advice for Millikin students?

A: “Focus on the bigger picture of who you want to be, and not so much get mired down in all the details that college can bring,” Drake says. “I think if you work hard and you're a good person and you're looking out for other people, there are a lot of things you can do in this world. So I think not [to stress] about the stuff that we can stress about in the college world, because once you launch, it really matters that you're a good person and that you're a hard worker, and that you want to better yourself.”

Q: Favorite mode of communication?

A: Instagram Reels

Dr. Paris Barnes (left)

Dr. Paris Barnes, Professor of Chemistry

Q: Favorite movie?

A: “The 1978 version of Halloween,” Barnes says. “My wife introduced me to horror movies when we first started getting together. I wasn't much into it. I still can't watch Modern because it looks way too graphic, but the old school 70s and 80s stuff, I absolutely love it. I probably watched it, since it was introduced to me, I would guess greater than 25 times.”

Q: Favorite place in Decatur?

A: “I love being in my home,” Barnes says. “That's where my three cats are, that's where my wife is. I'm way more of an introvert than I am an extrovert, and so when my battery gets very low, I will go do one of two things. One of them is absolutely, I'll go home and just spend time with my cats, read, watch TV, and spend time with my wife. Those are the important things to

me.”

Q: Favorite artist or genre of music?

A: “I am an old school alternative rock guy,” he says. “So, my favorite group of all time is REM, and I've loved them for many, many years. I'm currently revisiting a lot of stuff by a band that was popular in the late 1980s called Husker Du. But Pearl Jam is always on my playlist. Nirvana used to be heavily on my playlist. Not so much anymore.”

Q: Advice for Millikin students?

A: “I think the biggest one is, don't be afraid to connect with [professors],” he says. “I'm going to remove a few boundaries immediately with that statement. We're old. I get that. We can be scary. I get that I'm sometimes considered scary. There's a perception that we know a whole lot, that you can never know, that is absolutely false. You know, [professors] do the exact same things that you guys do. Let me put it this way: we probably did a lot of the things that you guys are doing now as college students. I mean, I guarantee there are faculty who were part of sororities and fraternities. I guarantee that there were faculty who drank and partied. I mean, I know that when I was in college, I definitely did some of that. So that would be my piece of advice, treat [professors] like people.”

Q: Favorite element on the periodic table?

A: “Vanadium, and I'll tell you why, vanadium is super colorful,” he says. “So in compounds and in coordination compounds and complex ions, you can get legitimately violet to red; you can get green, blue, yellow, and maybe even orange. Visually, it's beautiful, and it's hard to work with.” 

Paris was a joy to talk to and gave me even more insight into his life. Specifically, he wanted to speak with me about some of the things he loves most in life: his cats and his wife. 

“This is Aria, so we love tortes. Aria is affectionately and appropriately called Princess Puffy Tail at my house,” he says. 

“This is Earl. Earl's not so happy, right here,” he says. “Earl is 25 pounds, and he is 25 pounds of just pure awesomeness.”

Then he showed me a picture of him and his wife. “The reason I showed [these pictures] is [because] that's happy, that's that's where I'm happy, and I'm happy [at Millikin too],” Barnes says.

Dr. Barnes and his wife

Speaking with these four professors was an amazing experience, and I learned a lot. All of them really appreciated the questions I asked them and were excited to answer. So take this as your sign to talk to your professors; they have some really amazing information to share with you.