Ecology Professor Daniel Najera Selected As Faculty Spotlight
What is your official position at the college, and how long have you been here?
“I am a tenure-track professor I guess. I’ve been here five to six years as an adjunct instructor.”
How did you come to teach at Green River?
“I used to be a student here at Green River, so I went off got my college degrees and got a bunch of training. I’ve been teaching awhile so I wanted to move up to the area, and applied for a temporary adjunct position, I knew people who had worked here and I loved the campus. Those two things kind of steered me for sure.”
Is the subject you’re teaching now the initial thing you set out to study? Did you change majors at all?
“Absolutely the same thing. What’s really cool about that is I was starting my undergraduate career here at Green River, walking in these woods looking at the forest. And I still do that as part of teaching, as part of professional development and as well as some of the research we do.”
What do you do when you aren’t at school? What hobbies do you have?
“I love to hike, I like to watch basketball and sometimes football, then I have two boys that I do all the things with and play with. I am very into bees. My Ph.D. training is in entomology and so beekeeping has become a part of that. Initially, it didn’t start off as beekeeping, it was more the biology of the bee, but with a lot of the new developments and bees, beekeepers struggle a lot so it sort of focused on that a little more.”
What’s the best experience you’ve had in one of your classes?
“It’s kind of cheesy but we have potlucks a lot and sometimes the students really appreciate the class or they just like to cook. I don’t know what it is. Teachers generally have this weird way of measuring how well they’re doing with the class. You feel as if you’re doing something right as a teacher, so to me, the subject matter changes from class to class, but making sure I really connect with the students and that they want to be there and that they’re happy to be there.”
What is one of your biggest accomplishments in life?
“I’m not sure it’s actually is one of my biggest accomplishment but it is one I’m very proud of. A lot of people when they find out that I got degrees or whatever, they think ‘oh so impressive. One of the things I’m most impressed about is, I was the best man for four of my friends. And I think that doesn’t happen very often. Of course getting doctorates or whatever doesn’t happen very often too, but that to me a unique thing.”
