Friday morning I walked into the PAC a little after 8 a.m., crossing my fingers that I would be able to find the PEWS hallway. Right about the time I thought I was in the wrong place, I ran into someone opening their office door, and asked if she was Laura Wilson. Thankfully, it was the right place, and Wilson welcomed me into her office with a smile so that I could hear a little bit about her role at Union as a professor of athletic training.
Wilson has been working full time at Union since August. She taught one class as an adjunct professor last spring before transitioning from her clinical job as a physical therapist (PT) to her role in the AT classrooms here.
When I asked her what the transition to teaching was like, Wilson brought up several things that contributed to her feelings about the transition.
“It is a very big change,” Wilson said. “I graduated from this program in 2017, so I knew the ropes. I knew what was expected of a student, kind of the typical role of the professor, so that made it a lot easier to transition into it, simply because I had been through the program exactly how they’re going through the program.”
However, there were also some aspects of the change that were harder to adjust to.
“I will say that it was still difficult being on this side of it,” Wilson said. “My schedule as a PT was like 40 hours a week. There’s no wiggle room in that, it’s a very structured schedule, and I knew what I was doing every hour. Now it’s like okay, I have 40 hours to work a week but I can kind of manage those how I need to.”
Even though the adjustment from a more traditional work week was challenging at first, Wilson also talked about the upsides of having an added level of flexibility.
“Jonny and I had a little girl in May, and so it’s nice to, like, if I need to run home at 3PM to get her, I can, and I couldn’t do that at the clinic,” Wilson said. “If I do that at the clinic, I’m leaving someone in the dust, but here it’s like, ‘Well, I’ve already taught all my classes, I’m prepared for tomorrow, I can go pick her up.’ Hence the Pack ‘N Play in the back of my office.”
We laughed together as Wilson turned and pointed out the Pack ‘N Play on the back wall. I asked her about her daughter and husband, Jonny, who has worked full time at Union since 2017 as the Director of Campus Recreation.
Wilson loves working in proximity to her husband and mentioned to me that even small moments throughout the day are extremely valuable.
“With his schedule and my schedule and we also have a five month old, we don’t have a ton of time to just spend together,” Wilson said, “so it’s really cool that, like, if we have a short break at work he can just pop in, or I can pop in or, sometimes, if we’re really busy and we don’t have time to go get lunch, we’ll just walk to Cobo together and get food.”
Jonny is also part of the story about how Wilson came to work at Union as a professor. She leaned forward in excitement to tell me what happened that led her to this role. A Union AT student asked to get clinic hours with Wilson, and her journey to becoming a professor began after her first day of teaching in the clinic.
“I get home and I’m talking to Jonny and I’m like, ‘I think I wanna teach,’” Wilson said. “and he was like ‘What?’ and I was like, ‘Yeah, I never thought I would say that.'”
The couple agreed to pray about it and see what happened.
“Then that week, literally within seven days, Jen, the program director here, went into Jonny’s office and was like, ‘Hey, do you think Laura would be interested in teaching?’ Wilson said. “And he was like, ‘What? Like we just started praying about that literally a week ago!’”
An opening for an athletic training professor had come up, and Jen communicated that they thought Wilson would be a good fit for the program.
“It was bizarre!” Wilson exclaimed. “The Lord made it so evident this was the position I was supposed to take, like, I didn’t pursue it, the Lord was just like, opened the door and said ‘I’m gonna kick you in!’”
It was evident through our whole conversation that Wilson loves her job and brings so much to the table for her students, but I asked and wanted to hear specifically about her favorite part of teaching.
“As much as I enjoy teaching the curriculum, which is super important, I more so appreciate character development,” Wilson said, “so the mission of Union is important to me, it’s about faith and learning, but part of that is character development, not just excellence in the classroom. When my third years graduate, I want to be able to recommend them to employers because of who they are, because they are excellence driven, they are people- focused, Christ centered, and future directed, like, I, that’s what I want for my students.”
Wilson’s passion to see her students succeed is also evident in the way she opens up her life outside of the classroom.
“I try to make myself available outside of the classroom, which is difficult, being a new full time faculty and being a new mom,” Wilson said. “But that’s when I think I’m gonna get those opportunities to do those things that I want to do as a professor, more than just teach curriculum.”
She smiled as she told me about how some of her students came trick-or-treating at her house on Halloween.
“I just try really hard to be available,” Wilson said.
This effort is not lost on her students. Cora Eisman, a junior athletic training major who also plays midfield for the women’s soccer team, talks about the impact Wilson has already made on her as an AT major and a person.
“You can tell she really cared about each individual student through her willingness to give advice, teach growth-focused classes and maintain an open door policy,” Eisman said. “She is the type of professor who cares a lot about your growth as an individual.”
Tejal Morris, a sophomore athletic training major, also spoke highly of Wilson’s ability to connect with her students.
“Laura immediately became part of our family,” Morris said. “She is always willing to let us expand our knowledge further than the curriculum. [She] created a comfortable learning environment for me where error is allowed without judgment. We love Laura and are so thankful that she gets to prepare us to be athletic trainers one day!”
