Q&A with Susan Grogan and Emmie Mercer

Achievement in Teaching award recipients

Q: Who was your favorite teacher, and what did they teach you?

Every spring, professors from various departments receive the Achievement in Teaching award. In 2022 the recipients were Dr. Lance Hawley (Bible), Dr. Debby Nutt (nursing), Dr. Josh Brown (pharmaceutical sciences), Dr. Michael Claxton (English), Dottie Fry (theatre), Emmie Mercer (business administration), Dr. Susan Grogan (education), Dr. Keith Schramm (chemistry and biochemistry) and Richard Wells (engineering and physics).

In honor of teacher appreciation week, which was celebrated at Harding Jan. 23-27, Mercer and Grogan were asked a series of questions about their experiences as teachers.

Q: Why are you a teacher?

Mercer: Teaching is such a rewarding experience. I teach because I love getting to know the students while also getting to teach them about a subject field that I am passionate about.

Grogan: It is both a creative and scholarly work that challenges me and gives me satisfaction when I see understanding and learning in my students.

Mercer: Mrs. Blaney was my favorite teacher. She taught me middle school English and took a special interest in me. She would seek me out and ask questions about my day, and I could tell she genuinely cared. I learned so much in her classes, and she was so encouraging. She expected a lot from her students, but if you applied yourself, you’d learn a tremendous amount. It seemed that nearly every assignment had helpful applications in the real-world. I’ve tried to bring this same philosophy into my teaching. I recall that Mrs. Blaney required us to write a “book” in her class, and I still have it to this day. Her handwritten notes called my book a “nice masterpiece,” and she mentioned that it had “few mistakes.” It also had a note stating, “Never throw this away!” However, “throw’” was misspelled as “through.” It was the first time I recognized that even teachers make mistakes. This reminds me to give my students grace, and even myself, at times, when

Grogan: It has to be my 10th grade world history teacher (a coach) who taught us about the Holocaust and opened my eyes to the incredible cruelty in the world. He was a man I respected. He showed documentary films on the reel-to-reel projector of the atrocities and forever changed my innocent heart. He was kind and yet firm, and we loved him.

Q: Do you have any message you would like to leave for your students, past,

Mercer: Never stop learning. Always work to improve your spiritual, personal and professional lives. But, don’t be too hard on yourself. Your career is important, but nothing’s more important than your relationship with

God, your family and your friends.

Grogan: No matter what your environment tells you or the world news, stand on the firm ground of the word of God. He is the truth when the truth seems hard to find. He is constant and faithful when you are not. Always be grateful.

Q: What other passions do you have outside of your career? If you weren’t a teacher, what would you want to be?

Mercer: I enjoy playing board games with family, reading, cooking/baking, sports and gardening. I always wanted to own a flower farm or be a florist since flowers bring me such joy. I also would enjoy being an editor, because I always seem to find at least one mistake in every book I read. It’s now become a challenge of mine to find a mistake in every book I read, so it’d be nice to be paid for finding such mistakes.

Grogan: I would be a world traveler or an artist. I hope to draw and paint more in my retirement. It isn’t easy to carve out time for that these days.