What is it like to be colleagues with your former professors?

It definitely seems a little weird at first because you’re always used to saying, you know, Dr. so- and- so, but now you call them by their first names. Once you get over the initial shock or habit of it, it’s really great. It’s like seeing your friends again, really. The friendships you formed as professor and student you can just have as colleagues.

What do you think about how science and physics fit into the liberal arts?

I suppose the cheeky answer is to say science takes up four sevenths of the liberal arts. To be human, we have bodies and we live in a physical existence and as a part of that comes a curiosity. We encounter some existence that is not ourselves and it’s not in our head, strictly speaking. That’s where physics and the natural sciences come in.

What is your favorite piece of science fiction media?

This is blatantly Hillsdale, but I would say “The Space Trilogy” by C.S. Lewis. I like it because it reads very differently from other science fiction. It has a little bit of that Narnia quality to it; it’s a little more whimsical in its storytelling. It probes questions that are perhaps not interested in the intricacies of how a particular piece of technology works, but asks, how does this all fit into the human story?

What do you think is the most accurate piece of science fiction media?

It’s always hard to judge science fiction by its accuracy because there always has to be that element of disbelief. I’m reading “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,” and I will say Jules Verne does a fantastic job of putting in a level of scientific detail that seems satisfying but at the same time it seems very believable. So I appreciate that. 

What is some science fiction that’s just so inaccurate you can’t stand it?

I don’t know if I necessarily get angry, but I definitely laugh. If you’ve seen “Avengers: Endgame,” when they’re time traveling and Tony Stark is trying to figure it out, he’s like, “You have to solve the eigenvalues of a mobius strip.” That was just straight gibberish. What gets me more mad about science fiction is where it can sometimes just devolve into this scientism, so to speak – that the end of humanity is just to become scientific. It can be a little overrated at times. Maybe that’s my Hillsdale upbringing.

Why do you think so many Hillsdale grads come back to teach?

Hillsdale is an environment that is very hard to come by. It really doesn’t settle in until you leave that you’re like, wow, the conversations you can have with other people, the kind of joy — it’s hard to come by. It’s such a special place and to have the opportunity to come back and to really participate in that again, contribute to it, bring your experience from the outside world, I think is what draws a lot of alumni.

You know what it’s like to be a Hillsdale student. How are you going to take that into your teaching?

I know all the jokes. You can’t fool me. Hopefully I’ll try to relate to the students a little bit, although some things have changed. Facebook is no longer the dominant social media platform and I’m like, wow, I feel old and I’m not that old. On the more serious end of things, I’d like to think I have a general sense of what students are thinking about and what they’re curious about in their education.

What is it like to be back at Hillsdale?

I fell in love with the college five years ago and I’m still in love with it now.