Faculty Off The Clock - Featuring Ashley Walters

What happens when faculty step away from the classroom and the lab? In this episode of Faculty Off the Clock, we sit down with Professor Ashley Walters to explore the passions, pursuits, and pastimes that shape their life beyond academia. From unexpected hobbies to meaningful side projects, discover a different side of the faculty you thought you knew. 

Follow us: @facultyofftheclock on Instagram and on Facebook

🎙️ Produced by Michael Overholt

📍 Recorded in Podcast Studio #1, Addlestone Library

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:08

We welcome you to this episode of Faculty Off the Clock, a podcast series hosted by the College of Charleston's Office of the Provost that highlights the personal and lighter sides of our campus's professors. I'm Mark Del Mastro.

SPEAKER_04 0:21

And I'm Chris Corey, Associate Provost, and your host of Faculty Off the Clock. For this episode, we welcome Dr. Ashley Walters of the Jewish Study Program.

SPEAKER_07 0:29

Welcome. Are you ready for it?

SPEAKER_03 0:42

We start off here with um, you know, some uh questions about you and the and and particularly about uh your history and how you got here. And so to start off, we'd like to um uh ha ask you how you arrived at the College of Charleston, your current faculty position.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

Yeah, so um it's a pretty straightforward story. Um I went on the job market in 2020, and uh there's very few jobs in my field each year, American Jewish history, and CFC had one of them. So I applied, I flew in, interviewed, uh, was offered the job, flew back, and um the world shut down for the pandemic. And um, so I ended up moving here in the summer of 2020 as a pandemic hire and started teaching um online in the fall.

SPEAKER_03 1:36

So the culture that you experienced was uh not the same as others during normal circumstances. Wow. Yeah, that's uh that's that's quite an adjustment for sure. Um before we get into your off-campus diversions, which of course we're very interested in hearing about, um we want to know a little bit uh more about your life and your life history. So if you could tell us where you're originally from, born and raised.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

So I'm from a small town in western New York uh named Randolph. It's in the middle of nowhere. It's located about 70 miles south of Buffalo. And if you know the region, it's about 10 minutes from Jamestown, New York. Um, so beautiful farm country. Um, about half the town is Amish, half the town is not. And um it was a really idyllic place to grow up.

SPEAKER_03 2:27

What's the what's the population of Randolph?

SPEAKER_01 2:30

I think it's around 2,000 people.

SPEAKER_03 2:32

Wow, that is small.

SPEAKER_04 2:33

That's small. How close to the Pennsylvania border?

SPEAKER_01 2:36

About 20 minutes.

SPEAKER_04 2:37

All right, I used to drive from New York to Notre Dame along through Erie and that way.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 2:42

Dairy country?

SPEAKER_01 2:43

Oh, yeah. Okay. Lots of dairy farms.

SPEAKER_04 2:45

Okay. So uh growing up, rural, did you have a particular interests, activities, things you loved to do as a kid out there?

SPEAKER_01 2:53

Um so growing up, I spent a lot of time outdoors. Um, I had a a barn with um a bunch of rabbits and a couple of chickens. So I spent a lot of time in the barn with my animals.

SPEAKER_03 3:06

You had rabbits. Rabbits. So tell me a little bit about the rabbits.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

So um when I was, I think, around six or seven, I um got my first rabbit. It was a little brown rabbit, what's called a rex. The breed is Rex as very velvety fur. Yes. Um and I loved the bunny so much that I asked my parents for more, and before I knew it, I had a rabbit tree. And I became a competitive rabbit showman, and I would travel all over western New York showing my rabbits at competitions. Um over time I became Now was it just the Rex breed or did you expand your So I actually struggled with the Rex breed because while they're really beautiful and very soft, they're also very feisty. And as a little kid, I would end up with claw marks all over. Yes. Yeah. Um so I ended up moving on to lap lopeared bunnies. Oh yeah. Yeah. And so I became um I specialized in Holland Lop rabbits. And that's that's what I hear. Clearly I need to hear more about it.

SPEAKER_03 4:13

Well, no, I'm very intrigued because um my father actually uh raised rabbits for um several decades, and he was one of the more renowned breeders of you ever hear of Champagne deargent rabbits?

SPEAKER_06 4:26

No.

SPEAKER_03 4:27

They are a gray rabbit that uh has an undercoat. Um there's actually Silver has an undercoat that is black, and uh he raised those together with um New Zealand Reds. Oh, yeah, yeah. Uh New Zealand whites, excuse me. And we had uh actually two very large rabbit trees in the backyard in West Milford, New Jersey, and I have a lot of fond memories driving with him on the weekends in the fall to rabbit shows all through Pennsylvania, New Jersey. In fact, we used to go to Did you ever go to a national rabbit convention?

SPEAKER_01 5:00

I have not.

SPEAKER_03 5:01

Oh, that's you know, the Super Bowl for rabbit raiders. Okay. Did you ever aspire to go to a national convention?

SPEAKER_01 5:09

I don't know if that at that age a national convention was on my radar, but I I definitely competed regionally with my rabbit. And how did you do?

SPEAKER_03 5:18

How was your uh how how was the outcome?

SPEAKER_01 5:20

So I had um one rabbit named Nichols. I would pick themes when I had my my um batches of baby bunnies in one year it was dimes, nickels, quarters, pennies. Um but my rabbit Nichols was just a total all-star, and so he would just win whatever show I entered him in.

SPEAKER_03 5:38

Um this was a male rabbit, Nichols.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

Yep. But over time I got I got my own rabbitry started. We named it Walter's Wonderful Rabbits. Nice. And um um I showed them competitively for about um ten years or so until I went to college. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 5:58

And you have not resumed the rabbit hobby. You don't even have a little rabbit as a pet for the kids?

SPEAKER_01 6:04

My daughter has a guinea pig.

SPEAKER_03 6:06

Oh that's about as far as well, you know, the guinea pig fan is kind of you know, if you've had rabbits, it's kind of a kin pet. Uh we had guinea pigs growing up as well. Um, very interesting. Um favorite vacation spot growing up.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

Um when I was growing up, my parents um always took us to the same island in southern Georgia, Jekyll Island. Um it's a very historic island in off the southern coast. Um, used to be the vacation destination for a lot of the major um millionaires in New York City, Pulitzer, Rockefeller, so forth. So there's a very beautiful historic district on the island.

SPEAKER_03 6:47

And how did your parents arrive at the end?

SPEAKER_01 6:49

It was this kind of chain vacation process where one family from the small town in Western New York fell in love with it, encouraged some friends to go, and before we knew it, a whole contingent of Western New Yorkers were making the trip every spring to go spend a couple of weeks on the beach on Jekyll Island. Wow. Um, so that was where I spent all of my vacation time as a child. And then um my parents actually ended up retiring there, so now that's where I go to visit my family. Oh wow. Interesting.

SPEAKER_03 7:21

You know, you know about this island, Doctor? I do not. No, no.

SPEAKER_04 7:24

No, but I'm gonna put it on my list. It's beautiful. Interesting. Uh so ra rabbits, was that your summer job, or did you have something else that's more memorable or you know, connected to your early life in terms of of work?

SPEAKER_01 7:37

So I I spent many years working at various restaurants. Um I've held most of the jobs one can hold in a restaurant. Um, but I think the most memorable job that I had um as a teenager was I worked on a farm picking berries and produce in the summer. Strawberries, raspberries, blueberries. Um it was a local kind of pick your own, but then they'd have um young people come and pick for them in the summers. And uh so my brother and I got a job doing this one summer and we absolutely hated it. We were so bored. But we also had a tendency to eat a lot of the very technically allowed to do something?

SPEAKER_03 8:22

I don't think so.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

So the following summer we were not asked to return.

SPEAKER_03 8:27

Oh what were the hours like?

SPEAKER_01 8:29

Whatever, whatever you'd like, the more you pick, the more money you'd make.

SPEAKER_03 8:32

So you decided how long you wanted to stay out there in the field picking.

SPEAKER_01 8:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:37

Did you have a good blueberry technique?

SPEAKER_01 8:39

Uh you know, I did, but with blueberries, I struggle with um the wasps like to hang out on the blueberry clusters, and I'm really afraid of bees. And so I would go to grab the cluster and kind of shake it to get them to come off, and there would be a wasp in there, and then I'd be freaked out. So uh that kind of work and I we just didn't go well together.

SPEAKER_03 9:00

Oh, interesting. We were talking about your clearly you have a love for animals, um, but we suspect that the bunnies were not the first pets. Did you have do you have a recollection of uh your very first pet? And what was it?

SPEAKER_01 9:15

My first pet would have been four cats that were. Four cats, mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 9:20

All at once.

SPEAKER_00 9:21

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

Yep. Um, so I'm struggling to remember their names, Honda, Tasia, Tonka, and Fondue. Oh, good memory. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 9:30

Is this when you were really small?

SPEAKER_01 9:32

Yeah. Um, so they were very sweet, um, but they were indoor-outdoor pets, so they were always off roaming somewhere.

SPEAKER_03 9:39

Okay. So did did you continue to have cats throughout your childhood during the rabbit phase?

SPEAKER_01 9:46

We have we've always had cats. Um, unfortunately now my daughter is allergic to cats, so um, no more cats for the time being. But I do like cats.

SPEAKER_04 9:56

You spent a lot of time outside, but did you have uh a favorite board game with the family growing up?

SPEAKER_01 10:03

So my family has always um been very into cards. When I was little, my grandmother taught me how to play Canasta.

SPEAKER_04 10:12

Very lucky. Yeah. You know how to play? I just learned. Okay. Yeah. I feel like that, like you curve, like when I was growing up in college, if you didn't know how to play, people were like, so you just recently learned Dr. Clory.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Oh yeah. Okay. We'll have to play some. Yeah. Wow, excellent. That's a great game. Canasta.

SPEAKER_04 10:28

Other good games of card games you like?

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Um Canasta was really our our one and only game that we played together as a family. I grew up playing uh Civilization games on the computer. So um I'm kind of uh the last generation that grew up before there were computers in the home, but then as a teenager they entered the home. Yeah. And so um Civilization was really the first computer game that my brother and I got very into.

SPEAKER_04 10:58

I never heard of Civilization.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

Oh, it's a great game. Do you know it?

SPEAKER_04 11:01

I know of it, and my sons play different versions of those kinds of games now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

Um essentially you build empires. You start out with a single settler and then you kind of start to build empires and eventually take over other games.

SPEAKER_03 11:16

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:17

My kids play something called Hearts of Iron, which is a big uh like World War I or II simulation game, which is the same sort of thing. Yep. Yep. Cool, interesting.

SPEAKER_03 11:44

Well, Ashley, we're going to get a little more focused here, particularly on your childhood grammar school years, and ask you about a fun fact you can tell us about yourself from that period that you think might surprise or amuse our listeners.

SPEAKER_01 12:00

Okay, so grammar school? Yeah. Hmm.

SPEAKER_03 12:06

Any any activities, things that you did, or or an episode, anecdote from that period of time?

SPEAKER_01 12:13

You know, uh my my earlier years were really spent playing in one another's barns um with my friends.

SPEAKER_03 12:21

Um what what what kinds of games or did would you play with the animals or what played with the animals?

SPEAKER_01 12:26

Um every summer the highlight of our summer was going to the county fair. And as we were all 4 H'ers, we would go, we'd spend all the time in the barns with our animals, playing, roaming around together. Um so it was it was pretty pretty bucolic. Sounds great. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:45

Did those 4-H club um or the those summer events have like I feel like in the Midwest they would have butter sculptures?

SPEAKER_01 12:54

Oh.

SPEAKER_04 12:54

Butter sculpture. Yeah, yeah. You'd go and someone had sculpted like an animal out of butter out of butter. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

I not that I remember it, but it could have been there. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:03

We went to those 4-H fairs. I don't ever remember. Maybe I wasn't paying attention. I feel bad if they were there and I never noticed. I'll have to look into that. Um, same question for your high school years. Any fun fact you'd like to share with us from that period of time in your life? Where'd you go to high school?

SPEAKER_01 13:20

Randolph Central High.

SPEAKER_03 13:22

Oh, is it still there?

SPEAKER_01 13:23

Mm-hmm. Okay. Yep. Um, it's still there. Uh so my claim to fame for um Randolph Central High is I set the record and held it for about a decade, maybe two. The records might still hold for girls pole vaulting.

SPEAKER_04 13:41

Really? Excellent.

SPEAKER_01 13:43

So but before you're impressed, let me just tell you I was the only girl pole vaulter. Doesn't matter. That's quite a distinction. You did it.

SPEAKER_03 13:53

Something I could never do, even in you know, my youth.

SPEAKER_04 13:56

And I think my kids ran track, and it's a struggle to find kids who want to pole vault.

SPEAKER_01 14:01

Yeah, yeah. So um my father was a pole vaulter, so when I ran track and field, he came up from his work, which was just down the hill, and he'd come up and coach me, and I'd travel in the summer to um work with other pole vaulting coaches. Um, but no one else from my school, none of the women ever pole vaulted, so I got to hold the record. Uh, the running joke with the track coach was that he wouldn't declare it a record until I cleared higher than the boys high jumped.

SPEAKER_03 14:35

So did you have a pole vaulting set up at home to pra where you could practice? No?

SPEAKER_01 14:40

No, no. Um, but I did used to pole vault against um uh the Olympic medalist, gold medalist. Uh she was a young woman from Fredonia, which is another small western York town. And um, so she used to be my main competitor. So needless to say, I would I would essentially vault and be out before she would even begin at her starting height. That's how how good she was.

SPEAKER_04 15:09

So which when you're pole vaulting, I was always curious, like when do you know when the bar is bending that you're good? Or is there a moment where you're like, no, not gonna happen?

SPEAKER_01 15:18

Yeah, it's all about speed. And so you have to get enough speed as you're approaching the box, and then you just kind of put the pole in and it the momentum throws you over. But the the part that I really struggle with is I'm not very flexible, and there's really a degree of flexibility you need to have and upper body strength to kind of launch yourself with that momentum over the pole. And I just didn't have that. So it wasn't really a sport I was going to ever really do well in, but you know, you enjoyed it during that period of your life. It was fun. Yeah, that's great.

SPEAKER_04 15:54

It was very cool. Yeah, yeah. Big fan. Um, so we're gonna talk a little bit about your undergraduate years. Where'd you go to college and something interesting about that time in your life?

SPEAKER_01 16:04

Yeah, so um I went to college. Um, do you know the SUNY system at all? So State University of New York. I went to SUNY Plattsburg, um, which is way, way up in the Adirondacks. It's right on Lake Champlain. It's really beautiful, sounds beautiful, yeah. I've never been. Yeah. Um, so I went there. I ended up going there because I got recruited to play volleyball. And I really um that was kind of one of the main things I did while I was in college. Um, so I got to travel all over competing against other teams throughout New York and elsewhere. All four years you did volleyball. Wow. Yeah, volleyball's always been my main sport. Oh.

SPEAKER_04 16:42

In what position?

SPEAKER_01 16:43

Uh Libero, so the defensive specialist. So if you've ever watched a game and you see someone running around with a different colored jersey that only plays in the back row, that's what I was playing.

SPEAKER_03 16:53

Wow. I didn't even know that that was. This is interesting. Do you do you do you but are you do you still manage to play now?

SPEAKER_01 17:00

So I don't play anymore, but I do coach a fifth grade girls' team on James Island. Great uh Styles Point Elementary.

SPEAKER_03 17:08

So it it keeps your foot in the volleyball pool, so to speak.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

Yeah, yeah. It's really fun. And it's the first time most of these girls are playing, so they're getting to kind of learn the sport for the first time with me. And there's something very sweet about being the first person they encounter when they learn something like that.

SPEAKER_03 17:26

Sure, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 17:27

Yeah, and as they get better at it, um feeling confident like physically, you can handle it. Yeah, super cool. That's great. Yeah. So um as you went on to graduate school, where did you go? The something that you did then that might have been unusual other than your academic studies?

SPEAKER_01 17:44

I so I have studied at a number of institutions. Um so I began, I did a master's at Washu in St. Louis uh in Jewish studies. While I was there, I did a gap year where I went to Jerusalem and I studied at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. And while I was there, I ended up playing rugby for the women's team in Jerusalem or rugby. I I have always found that the people who gravitate toward rugby tend to be um just really laid back, outgoing people with a great sense of humor. I feel like if you're going to put yourself out there to just get totally obliterated on the field, that you kind of have to have a sense of humor.

SPEAKER_03 18:27

Was there like an acquaintance there in Jerusalem that said, Hey Ashley, why don't you join our rugby team?

SPEAKER_01 18:32

Not really, but I did meet my husband playing. So he was playing for the men's team and also uh taking graduate classes at Hebrew U. Oh, great. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:42

And what what position did you play?

SPEAKER_01 18:44

Um, so I played sevens and I tended to be on the wings on the outside.

SPEAKER_04 18:49

Uh do you watch uh rugby now? Mm-mm. No. I I got really into watching the Netflix. Uh it was like a about the um the big tournament that they play in Europe. It's like uh now it's not a good story because I don't know the name of the tournament. But it was like Ireland, England, France, Italy. They all they always play this tournament. And there's a great Netflix show about like following one year of the tournament.

SPEAKER_03 19:13

I've always been intrigued by rugby, but I never had the opportunity to actually when I was in Spain doing my master's there, I had a very good friend of mine who was a Spaniard who was studying at the Complutense, and he he still plays rugby now. I mean, we're in our fifties, he still plays rugby with these young kids, and he tried to get me to play. I'm like, I just like I can't subject myself to that right now. Yeah, yeah. And he was a little guy, and he was he loved it. Um we're gonna switch gears to the present now, and uh of course, with the theme of faculty off the clock, ask you about a current pastime or hobby or activity that you enjoy regularly, and you know how you first started, how you got involved.

SPEAKER_01 20:22

So my my activity that I have really um come to love doing in my spare time is boxing. Boxing. Boxing.

SPEAKER_03 20:34

Like like full-on boxing, hitting people in the face. And wow. Now how in battle on the bricks. I did. Yeah. This is oh my gosh, so many questions. So how did you how did you start initially?

SPEAKER_01 20:50

My husband has been boxing for years. He um trained in California when we were living there. I did my PhD in the Bay Area, so he was taking boxing classes there. And then when we moved to Charleston to James Island, he ended up um starting to take classes at hurricane boxing on James Island.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

And uh he had been training there for a couple of years. He started helping to coach the youth classes, and he kept telling me, I really think you should try it. And I was like, I'm not gonna go get punched in the face. Are you nuts? Um, so this went on for a couple of more years, and then finally I said, All right, you know what? I'm just gonna give it a try. Um, I think I'd been kind of looking for a fitness activity that I could um uh really get into. So I thought, you know what, let's just give it a try. And so I went to my first class. Um, there were only two women who showed up. Um Besides you. Yep. So I basically got a private class and I walked out of there thinking, I can't wait for the next class. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 21:57

And so did you actually have contact in that? First class or was it more technique?

SPEAKER_01 22:03

So it's a it was a lot of technique. Um but there is a degree of contact, but it's very controlled. So you know that um if you're throwing punches, you know where the target is, uh whether it be a mitt, whether it be the other person's glove. Um and there's a lot of communication and trust that goes on so that nobody's actually hitting one another unless you're in more of a sparring context.

SPEAKER_03 22:29

Aaron Powell And so I'm assuming you actually do sparring as well at this facility, correct?

SPEAKER_01 22:35

Yes. Um so I did not start sparring until about a year into it.

SPEAKER_03 22:41

Um and that's that normal for this uh some people start out sparring earlier.

SPEAKER_01 22:47

Okay. Um for me, I just wanted to get the fundamentals down for a year. Um but what ultimately forced me to um step into the ring is I applied for Battle on the Bricks, which is a um an annual charity event where about 30, 40 boxers, first-time boxers come together and raise a lot of money for charity, but also get in the ring at TD Arena and fight. And it's a thing like a tournament. Yep. Yep. And so I applied for it and I ended up getting selected. And so I went through about six months of intensive training.

SPEAKER_03 23:23

To prepare.

SPEAKER_01 23:24

Mm-hmm. I was in the gym probably five, six days a week, sometimes twice a day. I was also working out at home, doing a lot of conditioning training, getting ready for this tournament. So by the end, I was probably sparring about three, four times a week.

SPEAKER_04 23:38

Wow. And how how many rounds is uh is the uh battle on the brick?

SPEAKER_01 23:43

It ended up being uh three rounds, 90 seconds each.

SPEAKER_03 23:48

And how many fights did you have?

SPEAKER_01 23:50

Uh just one.

SPEAKER_03 23:51

Oh, just one. Okay. And um wow.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

Knockout or by points? Uh by points. Okay. Yep.

SPEAKER_04 23:58

So how long did it take you to feel like you had like good technique?

SPEAKER_01 24:03

I I think it wasn't really until the very end of training for battle before it felt like something clicked and that I really felt like, okay, I might have a shot at this. Um, my opponent had been training for uh several years longer than I had, and I knew I was walking into a really good fight. And um, so sh I I was very nervous and just struggling with how I felt I was doing and training and so forth. And then something just kind of clicked right before Battle on the Bricks, and it I just felt um very confident getting in the ring at that point.

SPEAKER_03 24:42

When is your next formal match? Do you have one planned?

SPEAKER_01 24:47

I don't. I'm hoping that I get to fight again, but um the the difficult So you really enjoyed that experience. I mean I I really did, and I I loved the training, and I think in particular I loved training with my teammates. Um boxing can be a very isolating sport because you know you're you're all alone in the ring. Um and so I think it it's really Did you have a corner person? I did.

SPEAKER_03 25:11

Um was it your husband?

SPEAKER_01 25:13

So I had um the owner of Hurricane Boxing, uh Michael Golamis, he's been coaching for about 30, maybe even more than that, years. Um and he's coached a lot of champions. Um then I had my husband. Okay. How does that work?

SPEAKER_03 25:30

The spouse dynamic.

SPEAKER_01 25:32

Uh so he was really great. He knows me well enough to know what I need to hear when I'm kind of losing it as I'm about to go in the ring. And then I had another coach, um Heather Miller, who's one of the women coaches at the gym. She was also in my corner. And as I was kind of panicking before going in the ring, she just kind of got in my face and said everything I needed her to say to me at that moment. So that's great.

SPEAKER_04 25:55

And did your husband apply the Vaseline? No, no. No, cut me. Yeah. That's great.

SPEAKER_03 26:02

Well, you obviously you you seem to go for things that are of interest to you that that that in that intrigue you, but um, we're wondering if there is a perspective off-the-clock activity that you would still like to tackle, but you haven't managed to do so yet.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

I have always wanted to learn how to play the piano. Um, I grew up playing the saxophone all through school, throughout college. For a while I majored in music, and I I've I loved the saxophone, but the piano has always been like the one instrument that I'd really like to learn how to play. Um I tried to live vicariously through my daughter by having her take lessons, and she did not like taking lessons. So um at the moment there's no piano playing in my house, but I'm I'm hoping uh that in the next couple of years that maybe it's a hobby I can take up.

SPEAKER_04 26:56

Great. Super cool. Um our last question before we get to the lightning round is what would you be doing if you weren't a faculty member?

SPEAKER_01 27:06

That's a good one. Um my husband and I always joke about um if we ever win the lottery, we are going to open up a used bookshop and cafe on Folly Beach. And that's where you'll find us.

SPEAKER_04 27:23

Okay. You have a name picked out?

SPEAKER_01 27:28

We we recently lost our dog who is quite young to um cancer. Oh, I'm sorry. Um, thank you. And um his her name was Donut, so um Donut Dog Cafe. I love it. I don't know how Lost Dog Cafe would feel about that, so we might have to work on it a little bit, but love the name, love the name.

SPEAKER_03 27:53

Well, always to conclude our faculty off-the-clock installments, we have, as Chris alluded to before the lightning round, where we ask each guest some important standard questions, again, about your life off the clock. We also want to clarify before we get into the questions that we do indeed know the difference between thunder and lightning. But since this is an audio podcast, we had to settle on the thunder sound effect to cue this portion of the interview. So to begin, what's your favorite carb?

SPEAKER_01 28:24

Um bread, all the way.

SPEAKER_03 28:27

White, wheat, any homemade organize sourdough. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 28:32

Uh protein? Um probably chicken. I ate a lot of chicken.

SPEAKER_03 28:37

Does that have anything to do with the chickens that you were exposed to growing up?

SPEAKER_01 28:43

So I never ate the chickens myself, but when they when I went to college, they very were sent to live at a different farm. Very quickly. Yeah. So they were gone as soon as I was gone.

SPEAKER_03 28:56

Gotcha. What do you prefer, pizza or tacos?

SPEAKER_01 28:59

Pizza.

SPEAKER_03 29:00

Pizza. You have a preferred pizza place in Charleston?

SPEAKER_01 29:05

I haven't had a lot of pizza here. Huh. Is do you think that's probably our local general? What did you find?

SPEAKER_03 29:26

I personally think that Sabatinos right here on Calhoun is uh really good New York authentic pizza. And has been consistently good, I'd say, over the past 15 years.

SPEAKER_04 29:39

Yeah, that's good. It's a good place uh after you've had a few drinks, get a bit of pizza late at night. There you go. Uh frozen yogurt or ice cream?

SPEAKER_01 29:47

Uh ice cream.

SPEAKER_04 29:48

Any favorite flavors?

SPEAKER_01 29:49

Uh moose tracks.

SPEAKER_04 29:50

Uh mousetracks.

SPEAKER_01 29:54

No, so it it's vanilla ice cream with these really thick veins of like chocolate fudge and then uh peanut butter cups. Yeah. Anything with peanut butter and chocolate.

SPEAKER_03 30:04

And it's a good flavor. I agree. Uh mustard or ketchup on a hot dog?

SPEAKER_01 30:09

Mustard.

SPEAKER_03 30:10

Certain type?

unknown 30:12

No.

SPEAKER_03 30:12

No, you're fine with spicy brown.

SPEAKER_01 30:16

I like all kinds. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 30:18

We're going fried here. Hush puppies are French fries. French fries. Oh. Awful cut.

SPEAKER_01 30:24

Then I like them very crispy. Very crispy. Yeah. Yeah. Hard to find.

SPEAKER_03 30:29

You have a favorite soft drink?

SPEAKER_01 30:33

Favorite soft drink. Um, growing up it was Mountain Dew. Now I don't think I could get Mountain Dew down, but um Diet Coke, I guess, is what I go to. Okay. That's good.

SPEAKER_04 30:45

Um Do you have a favorite off-the-clock activity other than boxing you're doing right now?

SPEAKER_01 30:51

I I'm a I love going to the beach. So on the weekends you find me on the beach with my kids.

SPEAKER_03 30:58

Is there an off-the-clock activity that you prefer to do alone?

SPEAKER_01 31:02

I like running. Oh.

SPEAKER_03 31:05

Big runner.

SPEAKER_04 31:06

Yeah, distance?

SPEAKER_01 31:07

Uh yep. Uh about five, six miles.

SPEAKER_04 31:11

Wow. Do you race at all?

SPEAKER_01 31:13

I've done the bridge run once here, and then I um in grad school I ran the St. Louis Half Marathon. So yeah. Wow.

SPEAKER_04 31:20

Impressive. Yeah. Uh favorite music band from your youth?

SPEAKER_01 31:26

From my youth. Oh my goodness. Um I really liked um listening to Wilco. Wilco.

SPEAKER_06 31:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 31:39

Not super familiar, but I know. I've heard of Wilco.

SPEAKER_03 31:41

I wasn't a fan, not for any reason. How about you, Dr. Gordon?

SPEAKER_04 31:45

No, but knew of them.

SPEAKER_01 31:46

Yeah. Any any others? Um this isn't really from my youth, but I've really been liking Lake Street Dive for a while now. You know, Lake Street Dive?

SPEAKER_04 31:54

That kind of genre.

SPEAKER_01 31:56

Um you know, they have kind of a jazzy sound to them. Oh. Yeah. Great.

SPEAKER_03 32:02

Do you prefer cold or hot weather?

SPEAKER_01 32:05

It used to be cold growing up in Buffalo, very much cold weather, but gone soft. Okay. I'm not sure I could handle it.

SPEAKER_00 32:13

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:15

Um in the South. Do you have a favorite uh type of barbecue sauce for your barbecue?

SPEAKER_01 32:21

I like the vinegar vinegary sauces. A little pepper. That's good.

SPEAKER_03 32:26

Plane train or automobile?

SPEAKER_01 32:29

I do like trains. That has been the answer every single time we've asked this question.

SPEAKER_04 32:34

Even in the US thing.

SPEAKER_01 32:35

Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 32:37

Is there a geographical preference for trains?

SPEAKER_01 32:41

When I was writing my dissertation, I lived in Philly. And so I would take the train to either New York City or up to New Haven for archival work. And I just found I could always get a lot of work done on trains.

SPEAKER_03 32:56

It's very relaxing, I think. It's got a little rock.

SPEAKER_01 32:59

They're not super stressful. You just kind of go in, pick a seat. You don't have to go through security. Can you go backwards and forwards on the train sitting? I do get car sick, a little bit of motion sickness. So definitely a preference for forward. Okay. Interesting.

SPEAKER_04 33:14

All right. This is the key question. Uh toothpaste tube dispensing method.

SPEAKER_01 33:20

Oh my gosh. We as a family are battling over this right now.

SPEAKER_03 33:23

Oh, please tell.

SPEAKER_01 33:25

It's from the bottom. You have to squeeze from the bottom all the way up.

SPEAKER_03 33:29

Is this your approach?

SPEAKER_01 33:30

This is my approach. Okay. And this is what you're pushing in your family right now. My kids are grab it from the middle and just squeeze and then get upset because nothing comes out. So we've been working on the concept of pushing from the bottom.

SPEAKER_03 33:44

And how's that how's that coming along? It's not great. It never went with me. I still squeeze from the middle. Oh, horrible. Horrible. Popcorn? Yes or no? I love popcorn. And how do you like your popcorn?

SPEAKER_01 33:58

I like my popcorn slightly buttered and with salt, but then I douse it in Frank's Red Hot and cover it in everything bagel seasoning.

SPEAKER_03 34:08

Oh my. Wow. That's quite a I need to try this out.

SPEAKER_04 34:11

It's really good.

SPEAKER_03 34:12

And how do you pop the popcorn?

SPEAKER_01 34:14

I mean, I have an air popper.

SPEAKER_03 34:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 34:17

But we also like buying the what's it called? It's the yellow bag, chick-a-pop.

SPEAKER_03 34:22

Oh, the pre-made. Yeah. Chick-a.

SPEAKER_04 34:25

So how much of the of the red hot sauce do you put on? I'm curious.

SPEAKER_01 34:29

So I I like a lot of it being from Buffalo. Buffalo wings are what I grew up on. And um, so I douse it, but um, you know, there's something about the butter and the Franks together with the garlic from the everything. It's really good.

SPEAKER_04 34:44

It's really intriguing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 34:47

All right. Well, so we'll reframe this question. So when you came in boxing, did you have an entrance song?

SPEAKER_01 34:54

I did. I came into Taylor Swift, ready for it. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:59

Were you really pumped like when you came in walking in music? And did you like I'm just thinking in my head, visualizing, did you have like a I mean, did you run out or I mean did you have like an intimidated face to the music? I mean, how did you approach it all?

SPEAKER_01 35:13

I I mostly focused on just trying to get in the ring without tripping. There's a tendency of people to tr get tangled up in the ropes when you're trying to squeeze through the rope. It's a thing, huh? Yeah. And given that there were 3,000, maybe 4,000 people in the room. It was important for you not to do that. I was really just focused on that. But um the song, um, you know, I talked about it with my kids, but my students had actually helped me pick it out. So many C of C students were quite vested in my boxing journey by that point. And so they helped me select the song, and then a bunch of them made t-shirts and came to the tournament and cheered me on. So it was also for that. That's so cool.

SPEAKER_03 35:52

Would you use the same song in your next match?

SPEAKER_01 35:56

I don't know. Probably not. Okay. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 36:00

So since you're boxing, you lived a little in Philly. Do you have you seen the Rocky movies?

SPEAKER_01 36:05

Yes. Once I get into Battle on the Bricks, my husband said we have to start watching them. So I've seen one and two, and then we didn't make it to the other ones. But we'll get there.

SPEAKER_04 36:18

So yeah, definitely the best. The the one with Ivan Drago. I just just because of when I grew up, that one I can quote from. Yeah, it's good. Well, thank you, Professor Walters for sharing your time today about what you do off the clock and for giving listeners an alternate glimpse into your life outside the classroom. We really appreciate it. And as a personalized marketing tool that we ask you to display in your office to bring attention to this podcast, we'll be giving you your own bobblehead that we'll present to you later.

SPEAKER_01 36:44

Awesome.

SPEAKER_04 36:45

Stay tuned for next month's installment when we learn more about life off the clock of another College of Charleston professor.

SPEAKER_07 36:51

Are you ready for it?

SPEAKER_08 37:03

But if I'm a season, he can join the heist, and we'll move to an island.

SPEAKER_05 37:08

And he can be my tailor.