Humans of the U July 28, 2026
Humans of the U: Rone Shavers
Jasen Lee - University Marketing & Communications
“I teach both undergrad and grad. I really want my students to learn. For the undergrads, I love exposing them to new literature they haven’t read before that introduces them to new ways of thinking about how books can be written or what books can do.
Fiction novels and that kind of stuff, that’s kind of my jam. I want them to hopefully know all the different things that literature can do outside of just telling an exciting story, and how it can really get your brain buzzing. That kind of stuff, along with how to see the world in a different way.
As an educator, you’ve got to plant the seeds and let him grow. You can nurture, you can water a little bit, but at the end of the day, what the student does with it is their choice.
When I went to high school, I had no idea about my career options. Not until maybe college and even afterwards did I realize I could read books, talk about them and get paid.
I’m a first-generation college student, so I didn’t have any kind of role model. But I kind of stumbled into it, and I’m still kind of learning as I go along, even though I’ve got a lot more experience now. My experience shows that even if you don’t come from a heavy academic background, that doesn’t mean you’re going to fail. You can still succeed.
For some folks, it’s interacting with people, it’s reading books, talking about books. The deeper I got into it, the more I really was able to appreciate it and have a really great understanding of it.
As a young professor, the toughest thing for me to learn was patience because each generation of students is different. It was all good when I was in my mid-to-late 30s teaching kids; you still could understand all the cultural references, and you were like the cool professor. Now, they’re on TikTok and all kinds of social media, and I have no idea what they’re talking about sometimes.
Having just moved into middle age, it has been a good learning point for me, especially in relating to young students. Sometimes you bond with him, but at the end of the day, you have to teach them rather than trying to become their BFF.
My goal for this new crop of students is to put them on a path toward creative success, mostly by encouraging them to think for themselves.”
— Rone Shavers, associate professor, Department of English
