Hundreds of professors comprise the educational staff of Southern Utah University, all working to teach the thousands enrolled in their classes. Many of these educators take extra steps to not only teach but support the students in their classroom, and within the English department, one such literature professor is Nicole Dib, who has valued student growth since her start at the university.
Dib’s career in education began right after her own graduation. After completing her PhD at the University of California, Santa Barbara in spring 2020, she moved from her coastal home in Southern California to the deserts of southern Utah to begin teaching that fall — right in the midst of COVID-19. Nevertheless, Dib felt like it was the perfect opportunity.
“I felt pretty lucky to land a tenure track job, especially since the pandemic was ramping up and the job market can be a little tight for English professors,” Dib said. “I was really excited to be at a public university since I do believe education should be accessible to everyone, and public institutions can often make that happen more easily than private ones.”
Her first classes were taught virtually in synchronous Zoom sessions instead of in the classroom.
“Zoom allowed us to have live conversations, discussions, and presentations, but it obviously was not the same as teaching in person; I realized I had to ramp up my emoting, be even more animated than I usually am, and try to switch things up in order to keep students engaged,” said Dib. “And to my students’ credit, they did a tremendous job of making me feel welcome — it was extra exciting to meet many of them in person the next year, especially after they had tried so hard to be engaged virtual learners.”
Despite the untraditional start, as Dib eased into Cedar City life and COVID-19 restrictions ebbed away, she found herself settling into the SUU community.
“My closest friends here are from Washington, Kentucky, Indiana,” Dib said. “I even met my girlfriend here in Cedar City, and she’s from New Jersey, and of course I’m from California, so it’s wild to think about this community of folks from wildly different parts of the country finding each other and bonding over shared interests, similar goals, our love of teaching and researching, and our desire to do this work no matter where it led us.”
She’s especially appreciated being welcomed amidst the students and professors of her discipline.
“The English department is tight-knit; I love that we have literature specialists, creative writers, composition experts, education pros, and rhetoric heads all in the same department, and getting to teach students who have chosen to specialize in one or more of those areas is really special. We’re all English folks, but we all have different areas of specialty and different passions, so it ends up being a simultaneously cohesive and multifaceted place, which I love.”
Dib’s embracement of her students’ subdisciplines is one of the reasons why students feel at home in her classroom. Another is her alliterative teaching philosophy: be firm, fair, and funny.
“The first one is simply because a bit of firmness helps students stay on track, and the second one flows naturally from it — students do have a lot going on, and so the fairness might emerge in my willingness to give extensions, for example,” Dib explained. “Classrooms work best when folks feel invested, and it’s hard to muster investment when there’s no sense of accountability — but then the fairness helps make students feel like they’re not going to suffer if they’ve had a rough week and need some extra time to work on something. And then humor works because, surprise, we like to be entertained! My students are hilarious, and since we cover so much dense and difficult material, I love alternating between the serious and the humorous to help things stick and to avoid making our class time feel like a chore.”
Students have embraced Dib’s teaching style and expressed how beneficial it has been to their growth both inside and outside of the classroom.
“Dr. Dib is who I aspire to be not just as a teacher but as a person. She’s always challenging us with a smile and knows how to engage everyone in class conversations,” said Kk Kindt, a student who has been in several of Dib’s literature classes.
On top of ensuring her classroom is conducive to her students, Dib also uses her personal time to help with individual student projects and goals, including conference opportunities.
“I am a huge fan of helping students prepare their research so that they can present at conferences,” said Dib. “For one, just going to a research conference and getting to hear other presentations, meeting peers at different universities, and engaging with the larger academic community is a way to feel more involved with your schoolwork, and it’s a way to recognize that you’re contributing to the production of knowledge out in the world, too.”
This dedication to her students has made a difference for many, including a freshly graduated student that wishes to be left unnamed. They have attended two conferences under Dib’s guidance and took several of her classes during their time at SUU.
“Dr. Dib makes a tangible effort to prioritize one-on-one relationships with students. She makes herself available for them in everything from office hours to advice after graduation,” they expressed. “She’s a big reason for why I was able to have the opportunities I did in undergrad because she made time for me and sought me out when opportunities arose.”
Dib’s students have made sure she gets recognized for her efforts. The committee for the 2023 Thunderbird Awards named Dib a recipient of the Distinguished Educator Award, which, according to the award description, acknowledges her teaching effectiveness, professional commitment, demonstrated interest in students, and overall service.
“I was very moved to receive that award, especially since it was the students who nominated me. I also received the HSS Early Career Award, which I appreciated as a signal of how much I was connecting with the campus community even in my earlier years here at SUU,” noted Dib. “These awards and the nominations I’ve received mean a lot, especially when they reflect on my work with our students!”
Ultimately, Dib is overjoyed that her students are as eager to be in her classes as she is. If the base reason is because they feel welcome there, even better.
“It’s hugely fulfilling … because we live in the world we live in, and that world can do a lot to break our sense of community, or to make us feel like our needs and values are not being met — and they often aren’t, unfortunately,” said Dib. “Just to know that in the space of my classroom, my students are feeling cared for, heard and challenged in a good way, is a major goal of mine. I think that my classroom space is one where we can work through difficult ideas and texts, and where we can feel vulnerable, but also where we should feel safe and heard at the same time; if my students can imagine how to try and recreate that space for themselves and for other vulnerable members of their community when they leave SUU and go off to do amazing things out in the world, that would be the dream!”
Author: Shauri Thacker
Photos courtesy of Nicole Dib
Editor: Kale Nelson
This article was originally published in the Spring 2024 edition of the University Journal.
