Lotz's excellence in teaching comes from long line of mentors and her love for the job
Monmouth, Ill. (09/25/2020) — Stacy Lotz, who is this year's recipient of Monmouth College's prestigious Hatch Award for Excellence in Teaching, can trace the beginnings of her long career as an art professor to a fateful conversation with Galesburg High School art teacher Jimmie Crown.
Lotz will officially receive the honor Oct. 9 in an online ceremony during the College's Homecoming weekend.
"Jimmie Crown was pretty much a legend at GHS from the 1960s through the mid-'80s," said Lotz. "One day when I was hanging out in his art room, he said to me, 'What are you going to do next year? Are you going to college?' I said, 'To do what?'
"Anyone who knew Jimmie Crown knew that he looked like Pavarotti and he sang like Pavarotti. He had a huge personality. He just laughed at me. And then he said in that deep voice of his, 'I think you'll make art, is what you'll do.' I said, 'And then what?' He said, 'You'll probably teach one day.'"
Coming to Monmouth
Crown didn't get to see that happen - he died of cancer in 1987 - but while enrolled in a ceramics class at Carl Sandburg College, Lotz met Cheryl Meeker, who was a grad student at Northern Illinois University.
About a decade later, it was Meeker - who went on to be a Monmouth art professor for 28 years - who told Lotz of a part-time opening at the College, which evolved into Lotz's current position. She's taught at Monmouth since 1995, closing in on the length of Meeker's tenure.
During her interview for the Monmouth position, Lotz was prepared to discuss her curriculum vitae in detail with the three members of the search committee. But one of the members was chemistry professor Richard "Doc" Kieft, who took the discussion down another path.
"Let's talk about Busch Stadium," said Kieft of a part-time position that Lotz had while earning her master's degree in art at Washington University in St. Louis.
"Basically, that was the whole interview," said Lotz. "And that's the full circle. It's about ALL your life experiences. Everything you do helps shape you into the person you become."
Impactful experiences
If Kieft had asked Lotz about her time as a student at Sandburg, Eastern Illinois University and WashU, she first might have told him about learning welding from Crown, a sculptor who was often commissioned to create public works. She could've spoken about taking her first sculpture class at Eastern and her "Oh, yeah! Yeah!" reaction to the visual art.
Then Lotz might have told Kieft about teaching art classes "to my peers" at Eastern and realizing, "I loved it. I think that was the 'a-ha' moment: teaching could be the thing."
Despite the advice, encouragement, mentoring and some motivational kicks in the rear from select teachers, perhaps the best thing that was said to Lotz came from her dad, David Ashton. The advice came after she had brought home a few friends from Eastern.
"We were pretty much acting like smart-ass college kids," said Lotz. "I remember my dad telling me, 'Don't come home with this know-it-all attitude.'"
And then, said Lotz, he delivered a statement she still carries with her today: "You have to remember who the heck you are, and where the heck you came from."
Lotz elaborated: "My parents (her mother is Jean Ann Ashton) were blue-collar people, often working two jobs at once. They worked hard. They were proud of who they were, and I was proud of who they were. I'm still proud of who they are. So I took what he said as a pep talk versus a scolding. It made me just go, 'Yeah, I know who I am, and I just need to relish every opportunity that I'm given."
Paying it forward
Lotz says that she feels a special connection with a lot of Monmouth students.
"I think many of them are very much like myself," she said. "A number are first-generation students like me. I relate to them and their struggles. They worry about making a lot of mistakes. But it's not the end of the world. I tell them not to be discouraged, and that they don't need to change to try be somebody else.
"It's easy to be sucked into trying to be something you're not. Your core is always your core. When you embrace that, you can change. You can become something even more than you imagined you can be. Mr. Crown used to say, "Think BIG, work BIG and you shall be BIG."
Now, it's Lotz who has the pleasure of looking for potential in her students and helping set them on a good path.
"My whole life, I've been a student," she said. "Everyone's always showing me a new path. I feel very fortunate to have had such great mentors. Now, I think of my students as my teachers. They're the ones that are influencing me now."
Lotz said her father's pep talk helped pave the way to specific events in her life, such as creating art installations featuring corn and other agricultural themes, but also in a very general way. She is proud of being a regional artist with Midwest, blue-collar roots. She's also proud of being a teacher to students like herself.
"I love so much what I do," she said. "Every encounter with a student is different. They all have so much to offer, and I enjoy hearing the stories they have to tell. You know what? It's just fun. I've only got so many years left to work, so I want to do the thing I really, really love, and that's teaching. I am one lucky dog."
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