Faculty Spotlight: Sara Lucas

What is your official position at the college? How long have you been at the college?

“I’m a Chemistry instructor and I’m full-time tenure now, and this is my fourth year being full-time. I was an adjunct here for a year prior to that, so a total of five years but they weren’t consecutive.”

How did you come to teach at Green River?

“My husband got a job in Seattle, and we were in Illinois working on finishing up with my graduate degree. So, since we were moving out here I had to start finding some teaching positions and Green River thankfully hired me for an adjunct position. This was in 2012.”

Is the subject you’re teaching now the initial thing you set out to study? Did you change majors at all?

“I’ve liked chemistry for a long time, and high school was when I started my passion. I changed majors a little bit, but it went from chemical engineering to chemistry, and my graduate work was in the learning sciences, so researching how people learn and I did that in the context of chemistry.

What do you do when you aren’t at school? What hobbies do you have?

“I have a 2-year-old, so she makes up most of my world outside of class. Watching her explore the world is pretty awesome. Other hobbies would be cooking, doing puzzles, reading fun dystopian novels like Harry Potter.”

What’s the best experience you’ve had in one of your classes?

“I can’t think of one best experience, but I do group work in my classes where the students build their knowledge, and what I get every day is the ‘lightbulb’ moment. This is a specific moment, but it happens almost every day.”

What was your very first job?

“I was working for the Detroit Lions in their summer camp. I was one of the food runners for them. This was in the late 90’s when Barry Sanders was still there.”

If you had the choice to be anything other than a teacher, what would you be?

“I would be a chef. Chemistry is everything, so chemistry is in cooking in that context.”