Interview with Patricia Noone

My honors composition teacher is Ms. Patricia Noone. She has been an english professor at Howard University since 1990. She has earned a BA and MA. I decided to interview Ms. Noone because she seems to be passionate about her career. Regardless of what field I ultimately decide to enter, I wish to be passionate about my work. I interviewed Ms. Noone in an effort to understand how and why she entered her field, and what led her to Howard University.

What college or university did you attend?
University of Maryland, College Park

What was your major and the courses that you took?
English. But I took many different types of class--astronomy, Earth science, lots of history from all over, piano, sociology, psychology, history of theatre, economics...too many to list really.

What major accomplishments have you made?
Hmmm...well, I have my daughter from China. She feels like my major accomplishment of life!

What inspired you to enter your field?
I love to read. Unfortunately, I learned at the end of the PhD process that the scholarship of English is not really about loving to read.

What inspired you to come to Howard?
I had a friend who taught here and loved it. At the time (and perhaps it is still true) Howard was somewhat unique in the field in that they actually hired people (like me) to teach their freshmen courses as full-time employees, with benefits. Many, many major colleges and universities simply throw adjuncts and part-timers in those types of courses. At the time, Howard was unusual in that they had a commitment to having freshmen taught by full-time faculty.

Did you ever wish to enter another field?
When I was young, I wanted to be a veterinarian. I thought about archaelogy for awhile when inspired by Dr. Jashemski at UMCP in a humanities course. She was a prime excavator at Pompeii. But since that was perhaps the only thing that would have been more impractical than an English major, I did not pursue it.