Tartan spotlight: Caroline Reynolds

Caroline Reynolds is an English professor who has been with Sinclair College for a long time, with last year being her 25th anniversary.

Her journey with Sinclair began before her time as a professor, as she started out as a Sinclair student and tutor. She was initially a history major, but realized that it wasn’t a good fit. She later discovered her passion for English.

Reynolds said the realization came to her during an English class—one that she would one day teach.

“It just really hit me that I should be an English major because I loved what I was learning, and I was really into it and I was a big reader,” she said. “It was actually a pretty cool moment.”

Reynolds studied for two years at Sinclair before transferring to Wright State University, where she got her undergraduate degree. After her oldest daughter was born, she took a couple of years off before returning to Wright State University to get her graduate degree.

**People gathered in an English classroom.** RECORDGOSHEN.EDU.

She said that she appreciated how her time at Sinclair gave her a solid foundation for when she transferred to Wright State University.

Reynolds said that she has enjoyed her time with Sinclair both as a student and as a professor, and one of her favorite things has been seeing students grow and succeed. She said it’s been meaningful to see students leave her class with better skills than they came in with, knowing that the work she was doing was helping people.

“The cool thing about writing is [that] there is an amount of self-expression,” she said. “You have to really be in touch with yourself, and if you’re doing it right, I think you have to care about what you’re creating… I love that as well because I see people have those ‘Aha’ moments that aren’t just educational, but they’re personal, and they grow as people, and it makes me happy.”

Reynolds said that one of the biggest challenges has been the major technological changes in recent years. AI being the latest example but cell phones being the first one she really noticed.

She said that while technology has done many good things, it ‘s also brought with it lots of major distractions, and as a result people’s ability to sit down and focus on something has gone down drastically. In addition, she said many students have begun to see college as purely transactional rather than as an opportunity to really learn.

“I just have really seen a change in the students that I teach, and so that’s been the challenge for me, trying to get people to see the value of self-expression and growth, not just in their writing skills, but in their personal life,” Reynolds said.

**A student on their phone in a classroom**. FACULTYFOCUS.COM

Reynolds said that the past 20 years feel like they have flown by, and it feels strange to know she’s not too far away from retirement.

Looking to the future, she has some grave concerns about shortsighted decisions guiding the direction of higher education, such as the cutting and “lumping together” of programs.

“It’s all just a matter of finances, and that’s really scary,” she said. “I don’t know what the future holds, and I think that’s probably my biggest concern.”

She encourages students to be well-rounded in their education and pursue “knowledge for knowledge’s sake.”

Reynolds plans to make her remaining years at Sinclair fruitful, as she wants to continue to learn and grow as a person, and to encourage her students to do the same.

“I still want to be valuable for my students and for the college and for myself,” she said. “I still want to be relevant, I still want to do good work, I want people to grow, I want to grow myself as a human being and as a teacher. So that’s what I see happening, hopefully.”

Erik Larson, reporter

Check out more from The Clarion: