Breaking Barriers

BREAKING BARRIERS
Conversations of A Classroom

For many students at Eastern Michigan University, African-American Literature serves as one less general education requirement to be completed. While for others, this course is taken out of a genuine interest, or curiosity, about life from a black perspective.
Whatever the students reasons maybe, one thing remains certain, Professor Heather Neff is the teacher they want to instruct the course.
“She embodies what a college professor should be,” says EMU Senior, Orlando Bailey.
The teacher, the novelist, and the poet are only a few of the titles Neff associates herself with since her arrival at EMU in 1993. The proud recipient of numerous teaching awards such as the Distinguished Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching, the university’s highest instructional honor.
“I truly believe that I was born to teach. I love interacting with students and sharing the material that has deeply influenced my life. I believe that everything I teach has the capacity to improve my students’ lives, as well,” says Neff.
The course itself introduces students to the study of African American literature, thought and cultural practices through an examination of the oral traditional, texts, music and visual arts of African Americans and other peoples of the African diaspora. Readings include oral narratives, fiction, poetry, drama, autobiography, political treatises and essays from 1619 to the present.
“My role is to serve as a literature teacher, a historian, a sociologist and, sometimes, a psychologist. I try very hard to read as much about American culture as possible and to pay contining attention to the news. African-American literature is a fascinating evolving and highly inspiring genre of American writing. I try to impart my deep pleasure in my field to my students,” says Neff.
“When I first took the class a year ago I was a little intimidated by her but in a good way. I saw how strong of a woman she was and how intelligent she was and that made me want to get to know her better. When I started going to her office hours, she made me feel like I could anything I wanted and got me involved with Honors College and the McNair program so that I could reach my full potential at EMU,” says junior, Courtney Williams.
Williams who is now a supplemental instructor for Neff’s course hosts two study sessions a week for current students taking the professors class.
“What most impresses me is that she is very tough in (her) lecture(s) because she knows that the only (way) to reach certain students is to break down all other preconceived notions that they have. She goes through the course giving students background information so that they understand the history behind the literature they are supposed to read,” Williams went on to say.
“ I now have a more deeper appreciation for African-American Literature as a genre now because of Neff’s couse, in retrospect her class really put things in perspective for me,” said Bailey.