By Jessica Kilcoyne

Maintaining passion and enthusiasm for their jobs is often a difficult task for many people.

Deborah Corpus, an education professor, has a perpetual eagerness for teaching that is hard to rival, especially when the students are freshmen.

While some professors may dislike teaching freshmen, Corpus said she adores teaching and relating to the students in her first year seminar courses.

“I love teaching FYS, because it does allow me to teach kids from all different majors and not just education,” she said. “When you’ve got music majors bringing one thing, that’s different than what a psychology major might bring. If we are all the same, if we are all education majors, we don’t get all those different perspectives.

“Part of the fun is getting surprised and having people do things I don’t expect.”

Corpus said freshmen are so enthusiastic and excited about being in college that they do what is expected of them and have fun with it.

She also said they have not developed the bad habits older students might have.

“Putting challenges in front of freshmen is enjoyable because they have fun seeing that they can succeed,” she said.

Corpus’ teaching methods for first year seminar and her other classes are designed to be advantageous for her students.

Corpus says she hands out daily agendas for each class period in order to focus on immediate tasks and not overwhelm her students. She said she strives to have changes in activities throughout the class to continually re-engage students that may have dozed off.

Stephen Bloom, a professor of education, described her teaching methods as proactive and caring.

“She firmly believes the way to help people become better learners is to help them become better people,” Bloom said. “She wants them to learn more about themselves as people and learn about others and value them.”

Claire Randich, a freshman public and corporate communications major, said she thinks Corpus can relate to her freshman students well.

“I think she understands us because she has kids around our age,” Randich said. “She sees her children in us and we bring out aspects of her children.”
Randich is on Butler’s volleyball team and had to miss a few of Corpus’ classes because of it. She said Corpus was extremely helpful in getting her back on track with the rest of the class, and Corpus understood her need for extensions.

Corpus began her undergraduate studies at Butler, majoring in secondary education and English.

Later in her career, when she was offered a position at Butler, she knew she had to accept it. Corpus has been at Butler for 14 years and has never regretted coming back to teach.

“I never feel like people don’t like being at Butler,” Corpus said.

Corpus’ love for Butler has kept her teaching here for 14 years. In that span she has developed close relationships with her colleagues.

Bloom said he could not find one person on this entire campus that has any dirt on her.

“She is well-known that if you want something done and you want it done top notch, you go to [Corpus],” he said.

Without her continual enthusiasm, Corpus’ classroom would not be the same.

“It’s that love of learning I want to get across,” Corpus said. “If I can help this generation fall in love with reading again, I’ve done something good in my