Catherine Kuiper poses with her husband, Andrew, and three children, two of whom were involved in a baptismal cake fiasco. Courtesy | Catherine Kuiper

In this quick hits interview, Assistant Professor of Education Catherine Kuiper talks Bruce Lee, baptismal cake, and the NFL. 

What is an especially strong or beloved childhood memory? 

Growing up in rural Washington, we had an inexplicably large digging hole in our backyard and my brother and I would excavate for hours, working as if our livelihood depended on it. We even worked in the rain, which did at one time result in a mud hole swallowing my legs. My brother tried — surreptitiously, to avoid our parents’ attention — unleashing a garden hose into the mud in the hopes of loosening me, but in the end we had to summon an adult to pull me out.

Favorite film?

“Enter the Dragon,” starring Bruce Lee. Just look at the title sequence on YouTube.

What were some of the most formative classes you took during your time at Hillsdale? 

Smith on Shakespeare and Dante; Jackson’s Anglo-Saxon; Birzer on the Civil War; Whalen on Newman.

How did you meet your husband, Andrew? 

We attended Hillsdale together, but the relationship was precipitated by casting him as Lysander in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” — I was directing Shakespeare in the Arb — and then a five-hour argument about “Pan’s Labyrinth” that drove everyone else at our Saga table to leave and made him forget he was hosting a birthday party.

What is one of the craziest or most adventurous things you’ve done? 

My husband and I walked the Camino de Santiago for our honeymoon without preparing in the slightest.

Funniest thing one of your kids has said or done? 

When Stephen was 3, he snuck enormous handfuls of Anna’s baptismal cake out of the fridge and climbed a flight of stairs to feed it to his 16-month-old brother Daniel in his crib, while the relevant parental units slept soundly through it all.

Whom do you admire and look up to the most? 

At the moment, Nicholas of Cusa. And my husband — he doesn’t read the Collegian, so he doesn’t need to know.

What’s something you’ve learned from your students?  

Sometimes you have to remind people that internet search engines exist. But also that their particularity is essential and life-giving.

If you weren’t a professor, what would you be?

 A sideline reporter for the NFL.

What’s something you’d tell your younger self now? 

It’s not at all what you would imagine.