NC State University Academy of Outstanding Teachers<\/h3> Recipients of the Outstanding Teacher Award become members of the Academy of Outstanding Teachers for as long as they remain a member of the NC State faculty.<\/p>
Learn more about the <\/span>Academy <\/span> Interview Transcipt<\/h2>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Paul Fyfe:<\/strong> Hey, Casey, how are you? <\/p>\n\n\n\nCasey Cothran:<\/strong> I'm doing wonderfully, Paul. How are you today? <\/p>\n\n\n\nPaul Fyfe: <\/strong>I'm great, and so delighted for you to join us to talk about outstanding teaching and share some of your perspectives, with the folks that are watching and listening over the summer, and to learn from you as continuing students of our profession in teaching.So just to get everybody acquainted, can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Where you grew up, where you went to school. <\/p>\n\n\n\nCasey Cothran: <\/strong>Sure. Yeah, I'm a native South Carolinian, as were my parents, and I grew up in South Carolina, and sometimes I say, \"I grew up in Columbia,\" and people say, \"Oh, the beautiful country in South America.\" No. The capital of South Carolina. My undergrad degree was at Clemson. So it's very interesting. Academics often fly far and wide. But I do actually feel lucky to teach in my home state. I love that I get to teach South Carolinians, and especially a lot of first generation South Carolina students at Winthrop University.<\/p>\n\n\n\nSo that's my exciting background.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Paul Fyfe: <\/strong>That is fantastic. Did you know I'm a good sand lapper from coastal South Carolina? <\/p>\n\n\n\nCasey Cothran: <\/strong>Oh my gosh, you even, you even know the term. I'm so excited. <\/p>\n\n\n\nPaul Fyfe: <\/strong>I also know the song, but I'm not gonna record that here. <\/p>\n\n\n\nCasey Cothran:<\/strong> I'm ready to sing it later if you would like. <\/p>\n\n\n\nPaul Fyfe: <\/strong>Casey- tell us about your professional pathway. How did you get to where you are today in this context, as teaching as a vocation? <\/p>\n\n\n\nCasey Cothran: <\/strong>Oh, all right. Well, I will say that I started at Clemson as a pre-med major, but I had enjoyed being a candy striper and delivering flowers and balloons to people. I'm a very social person. But when I got that internship at a hospital and saw a lot of needles, I just fainted right and left- ... and decided that pre-med was not for me. So I decided to major in English because it felt like something I didn't have to force or fake, something I authentically enjoyed.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAnd I got into those college English classes, and I just never wanted to leave, and I haven't really left. I'm still there. But I will say that I majored in English at Clemson, and then I went to the University of Tennessee and got a master's and a PhD in English, focusing on 19th century British women writers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then I did some adjuncting. So I was an adjunct instructor at the College of William and Mary while my husband was getting his law degree there. And by the time he finished, I had a five-month-old. And so I was a little bit depressed. I wasn't really on track to go on the job hunt. But he had a great opportunity for a job in Charlotte, and so we moved there. But I really missed that classroom, and so I tried to get a job at Winthrop as an adjunct. And I started off teaching one class of Writing 101 in the fall. But I managed to work my way from an adjunct to a full-time instructor, and then by a stroke of luck, I got moved from the instructor track to a tenure track, and then I became an associate professor, and a professor, and a department chair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then I got us through COVID, and I was done with that department chair. So I was delighted, believe it or not, to go back to a four-four teaching load, because that is my favorite thing about academia. I like research. It's exciting to me. But I love talking with people in classrooms about reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I've always kind of the minute I stepped into that classroom as a sophomore in college, it's all I ever wanted to be. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Paul Fyfe: <\/strong>You know, it's funny, I was also a reformed pre-med undergraduate who found an English major a little bit more rewarding. And I'm wondering if it was not just the needles and the subject matter, but if there were specific things about the teachers or educators you met along the way, or if there are other examples of educators that inspired you, and how did they come to influence you in your teaching practice?<\/p>\n\n\n\nCasey Cothran: <\/strong>I think I could think of a lot of general and specific examples. So I would say one thing that I've always enjoyed is talking about things that are important and talking about big ideas. And so I think that no matter what time period or cultural literature I was studying, I was really inspired by the teachers that made me think deeply.<\/p>\n\n\n\nI really enjoyed studying theory, because it felt so challenging. And yet it felt like it was opening up a wonderful world to me. So I always really appreciated teachers that could take very complicated ideas and present them in a way that I could participate, even if I didn't understand all of Derrida the first time I read it. Like, who does even now? But like this idea of opening up new worlds for me. I would also say, too, that I've also been inspired by teachers that did things that were interesting. So I had a teacher that had us do a lot of drawing. So when we read Jane Eyre, we drew pictures of her dreams. Believe it or not, I really try to incorporate drawing into some of my classes, especially like a Brit Lit survey, the lower level. What does this dragon in Beowulf look like? And so trying to help people really get comfortable, building pictures in their mind based on the words that they see on the page. So the teacher that used to do that is influential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Paul Fyfe: <\/strong>Yeah. Yeah. So as you have become a teacher- you have now been recognized as an outstanding teacher. And I'm curious on your perspective or what you've had reported, what do students, colleagues, administrators you think recognize in your teaching? <\/p>\n\n\n\nCasey Cothran: <\/strong>I guess I would say the students-- I'll take this as a compliment. The thing that the students like, I would say, is my enthusiasm. That's what I typically get compliments on my student evaluations. And I don't know that I control that. I do think I love my job. I wake up in the morning excited to go talk with people about books and ideas. I do feel like I have the best job in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\nGrading sucks. I don't like grading, and sometimes in the world we're in, there's more of a push to be a policeman with AI, with scanning for that and this and that. These aren't the things. There's things about the job that are hard, and that are ethically challenging and confusing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But I love the basics of the job. So I do go in there excited, and I think my excitement makes them excited, and so that's nice. I would say I hope what my colleagues and administrators see is, as time passes, I'm really interested in, I know this sounds so cheesy, but student learning outcomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I've really had to rethink my priorities over the past 20 years. I think my department has taught me to do this. Ten years ago, we redid our major. We went from being an English department with tracks in creative writing and professional writing and language and literature to an English studies department, where we really focused on skills rather than content. Content is still important. I don't mean to say that content is not important, but I'm always thinking every semester when I design my classes, as the world changes, what can I give my students? What is the value of this literature class? And I think there's a lot of value to be had, but it's not necessarily the value that I thought it was when I was 22 years old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And, teaching my first British lit survey. Actually, I was 24 when I did that. Twenty-two was Writing 101. I used to joke that if you can read Beowulf, you're ready for law school. I still think that's true. But I also feel like the world is full of manipulative writing. And actually, disinformation and even really harmful spaces where bots and bad actors are trying to convince you of things through writing. And I really feel that being able to read and to be aware of how you feel when you read and what you're being asked to feel or think or picture, and your ability to control your response to that is more important than it's ever been.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I think that looking at Frankenstein<\/em> or Blake's Songs of Innocence<\/em> and experience is a great place to really practice those skills. And I think that's something I hope that my students take with them throughout their lives. So just really focusing on, to come back to the main topic, student learning outcomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhat is the goal? The goal is definitely to talk about theory, monster theory, gender theory, race theory, and it's to read these amazing texts and learn about a historical literary period. But I do more close reading than I've ever done because I want to prepare my students to defend themselves in a world that's throwing language at them all the time and in ways that aren't always well-intentioned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Paul Fyfe: <\/strong>Yeah. I remember, uh, feeling some chagrin when I would get course evaluations on a British Victorian literature survey or related period-based courses that were like, \"I thought this course was going to be so boring, but\u2026\" And that, that work of enthusiasm building is, is really crucial for all sorts of things. But I think it also does pave the way towards skill development. I think one thing we're seeing right now is, like, what is the motivation to do the work when you have a technology that seemingly can do it for you? And building in that motivation to do work that can be exciting and fun, but that can also be hard, is maybe more important now than ever in terms of why are students here and doing it the way that you're asking them to.<\/p>\n\n\n\nI wonder if you can talk to us more about that, ways that you try to energize and even inspire your students. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Casey Cothran: <\/strong>I think the way I try to do this, and I hope it's helpful, is I try to inspire them by giving them choices and agency. I was doing some research recently, and was reading about scholarship about reading comprehension, because I don't know if you've noticed, but reading comprehension skills are down a bit nationally.<\/p>\n\n\n\nOne of the big insights I gathered was that there's a connection between the feelings of control and autonomy that students feel when they choose their own paper topics or reading materials, and their motivation to learn. And the scholars I was reading were talking about how motivation to learn really is tied to growth and reading comprehension. If you're not motivated to try hard, you're not going to grow. It's like being at the gym, you know? If you're not going to make yourself a little bit miserable, you're probably not going to get stronger. And so, I've tried to incorporate more choice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
For example, I teach a literature and film class. One of the most beautiful, careful, lovingly written, well-researched, lengthy papers I've read in recent years was on Detective Pikachu and the whole culture of Pokemon and how that was transformed into a film. And the student used a lot of adaptation theory. It was not one of the films and book pairings I had assigned through the class, but I said, \"You can write on any adaptation.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the joy - the student put so much more work into that project than I was even expecting, but it was because of choice. And so whenever I can allow for choice, I try to do that. I've had something of a success, fingers crossed, for the first time this year, in my Brit Lit survey, which is sort of a bear because it's Beowulf to the present. Of course, we can cover all that in one semester, right? But I designed a treasure box assignment where you go looking for treasure. You pick a time period. There's six - the Broadview Anthology is broken up into Medieval, Renaissance, Enlightenment, Romantic, Victorian, the 20th century and beyond. And for each time period, my students had to pick a treasure. They had to find something I had not assigned that they wanted to read. And then just write 250 words on it and tell the class about it. They loved this assignment. They read multiple pieces, looking for the piece that they wanted to claim was their treasure, and they were not pieces that I would have assigned, and they were not always easy pieces. I was amazed at the extra reading they did for an assignment that I thought would just be a little bit of a pleasant move off the path that I had designed. So I think, again, agency, authority, choice, those are ways that I try to get my students excited about what we're doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Paul Fyfe: <\/strong>Yeah, that's great. Again, relevance is another tool that we have to try to get them motivated and engaged, right? Especially when that comes intrinsically rather than being, as you suggested, the kind of police figure. You've really, really got them on the hook.<\/p>\n\n\n\nIf you could go back and give your younger self - not that really you're not still quite young - but your even younger self advice about teaching and working in higher education, what words of wisdom would you share? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Casey Cothran: <\/strong>Oh, goodness, that's interesting. I would give different words of wisdom about teaching and about higher education.<\/p>\n\n\n\nI'll start with the teaching, 'cause I thought about that one. I would say, I broke this down, 'cause I heard someone say this once and it really stuck with me. Teaching is not about proving that you know the material or that you have interesting ideas. Teaching is about creating a space where a student can show that they know the material and that they can have interesting ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So I think when I started teaching, I was just really young, and I had so much to prove. And that kind of anxiety and desire to show that you have a right to be there, which is so normal, and I think all new teachers have. When you stand up in front of a room and someone's writing down what you say in a notepad, I can't think of anything more stress-inducing for a young person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But I think the older I get, the more I realize that teaching really, to me, isn't about the teacher. I'm just the guide. It's about my students and the material, and trying to help them find something meaningful in these texts, which are about, what does it mean to be human? And so I guess that would be the teaching advice I would give my younger self.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In academia, I would also talk more about balance. I think too because I've enjoyed teaching, you can't let your desire to design fun assignments run all over your research time. You've got to kind of break things up and especially as you go along in academia and you have more service responsibilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those were things I didn't even know existed when I was first starting out. I thought, \"Oh, research and teaching.\" There's this whole huge piece, service, where you're on committees and you're advising and you're writing letters of recommendation and you're looking at assessment data. It's going to recruitment days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It's this other piece too that can be a surprise. So I would say to myself as a young person in higher education just to be really thoughtful about time management. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Paul Fyfe:<\/strong>Yeah. Really a life lesson, not just for those new to the profession. But for those people, and this is kind of a maybe a different version of the question. If not talking to your younger self, but for someone who is new to teaching, are there tips but also maybe resources you would identify for them? <\/p>\n\n\n\nCasey Cothran: <\/strong>Well, I was gonna have a bit of a different answer for this one. Rather than listing resources that are professional and valuable - there's lots of wonderful materials on the MLA website (https:\/\/www.mla.org\/) for future English teachers at least.<\/p>\n\n\n\nI think it is important to create community where you can as new teachers. I think sometimes it's even nice if you start at a university, if you have an incoming class, I know that there's a lot of orientation activities for new faculty at my university where you can make friends across campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then if you're in grad school, if you or your grad cohort are teaching similar classes, I think nothing can replace a community for early teachers. I think you are going to make mistakes, or at least I did. I made lots of mistakes as an early teacher - you say something that you think is gonna inspire a student, and they just find it irritating. Or you assign something you love and your class absolutely hates it, or an assignment flops. It's so meaningful to be able to talk with other people that are in your same position, to gripe together, to brainstorm together, to be creative together. I will say, one thing I worry about with AI, not to be a Negative Nelly, but I worry that we go to that computer space for chat and inspiration, but there's so much chat and inspiration to be had in your peers. And you should go to lunch or have a coffee or have a drink and talk about, \"Man, I just did not get my students excited today - someone fell asleep and was snoring, and the book fell off the desk.\" I mean, you're gonna have these stories, and I think having a cohort gives you a space to speak and also to listen and to learn from each other. I cannot stress enough how hard it is to teach alone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Paul Fyfe: <\/strong>I will promise you a, a lunch or a coffee or a beer in advance of an answer to the question that I'm very curious about now, which is have there been any really formative mistakes that you reflect on as the kind of things that have shaped your teaching career, if you're willing to share?<\/p>\n\n\n\nCasey Cothran: <\/strong>I will share. The biggest, worst mistake I ever made, my second year of teaching. I had a group of fraternity brothers that were taking a class I was teaching, and they were not bad, but I was young and they were rowdy, and I had a lot of insecurities about this group. And I'll be honest, I made some stereotypes about them. I thought they didn't take me seriously, and I assigned a poetry writing activity. And one of them turned in some poems that were really beautiful, and I didn't believe the student wrote them. I kind of was sort of asking some pushing questions after class.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAnd he said, \"I don't know why you're being like this. My peer turned in a paper that he wrote in high school, but I actually tried. I actually wrote these poems.\" And it was really, it brought him down in a way that I had not intended, and I didn't realize I had that power. That someone had taken a chance on writing some rather sensitive poetry, and by me not taking it seriously or having a stereotype about what the student was capable of, that I could take away their joy, in that kind of vulnerable moment of writing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I really tried to make it up to the student and say, \"No, no, I'm sorry. I'm, I'm so grateful. These were just so good.\" You know? But it taught me that I do not know my students and I should never assume I know everything about my students. I try always to have an open heart, to not judge, to see a beautiful poet inside every person. I have had students who made big mistakes in my classes, cheated or plagiarized, but if I can get them in my office and have a conversation with them and say, \"Hey, you screwed up. Why did you do this? Like, I know you're a good person. Like, what happened?\" They usually end up with a story, something, and I want them to be able to come back from mistakes, and I wanna be the sort of person that helps the best part of them grow, and I can't do that if I make judgments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Paul Fyfe: <\/strong>Yeah. I want to thank you for sharing, by the way. I want to ask a related question, from something you also mentioned earlier about your institution's first-generation students. How do you also create this trusting and welcoming space for students who may not self-identify in terms of the alignment between who they are and the classroom space? Like, what, what do you recommend for other teachers to kind of involve and support students who are coming from these different backgrounds?<\/p>\n\n\n\nCasey Cothran: <\/strong>I would say two things. One, listening. Learning to listen is important. Really listening. And then compliments. I think we are too stingy with compliments. And I used to be more stingy with compliments when I first started grading. But now I always try to remind students of what they're doing well. I worry that plagiarism and AI use comes from a place of insecurity. Humans feel like they're not as good as the robot. And so why would they even try when the robot can do it? And I'm constantly saying, \"Give me your messy paper full of apostrophe errors and comma errors. I know you can put it through a machine and it will make it perfect, but I want to hear your voice, and I like the way your voice sounds, and I like the things that you think about.\" And I know we can polish them and refine them and do these other things, but I put more energy into the beginning of the process - the idea creation, the rough draft, and I compliment them on their labor. Because I think there's joy in those things, although the structure of academia pulls it out of us a lot because we're always being ranked and given numbers on our mastery. But if I can kind of get students thinking about potential delight they could feel in creative moments, and pride in their ability to have ideas, I think I don't need to worry about the commas anymore because there's a machine. Right. So why don't I celebrate what they can do that the machine can't do?<\/p>\n\n\n\nPaul Fyfe: <\/strong>What a wonderful answer you've just given. That was great, Casey. I compliment you. And this is a personally curious question because I think, especially coming out of COVID,many teachers sort of defaulted towards student support, and I personally have been worried if like am I too much on the, what in one quadrant is called the sentimentalist side, and need to maintain rigor and standards to be what in the ideal quadrant is called a warm demander. So how do you balance that kind of complimentary, growth-oriented mindset with the kind of skills outcomes and high standards that you have as an outstanding teacher? <\/p>\n\n\n\nCasey Cothran: <\/strong>Oh, gosh, that is a constant struggle. But I will say, I don't know that gamification is the right word, but I do try to make the tests. I'm like, \"You know what? If you've read, you should be able to come in here and do the work. The A student is gonna be able to do these things.\" I do try to inspire them by talking about bars. Like, you know, if you do really well, Sigma Tau Delta, the English Honor Society, has a place where you might be able to publish this paper, you know? And my department does an annual undergraduate and graduate research conference where students read their papers. I'm always trying to kind of talk about the rewards of working hard and producing something really wonderful.<\/p>\n\n\n\nI don't know. It's a challenge. I will say, though, that, you still have to push. It can't just be all joy. But I think if you start with joy and the enjoyment, going and finding eight sources on that piece that you really... I let them do a research paper on the treasure box in the Brit Lit survey. \u2018Well, I picked out a religious author that she didn't assign, and I'm a religious person and I want to go read religious theory.\u2019 That student's gonna be a lot more motivated to work really hard with choice. But yeah, that's a great question. I wish I had a magical answer to that one. But yes, the warm demander, the dream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Paul Fyfe: <\/strong>Well, you have led a joyful conversation here. And I think everyone listening to it is gonna learn so much. And thank you so much, Casey, for taking the time today to, uh, to chat with us in our cohort. We really appreciate it. <\/p>\n\n\n\nCasey Cothran:<\/strong>Thank you for having me. <\/p>\n\n\n\nPaul Fyfe: <\/strong>Okay. Now I'm assuming that they're cutting us off and we can talk really and sing our Sandlapper song. I know, right? We are good Sandlappers. Hold on, let me stop the recording. Oh, you're still recording. Okay, well maybe they'll get a little Sandlappers.<\/p>\n\n\n\nCredits<\/h3>\n\n\n\n The SPARK Team 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nMaria Gallardo-Williams, Producer\/Writer<\/li>\n\n\n\n Janet Del Pinal, Promotion\/Graphic Designer\/Announcer <\/li>\n\n\n\n Kyle Miskell, Audio Engineer<\/li>\n\n\n\n Kassidy Wood, Social Media Promotion<\/li>\n\n\n\n Jopsy Bayog, Music <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n"},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Introduction Welcome to Igniting Outstanding Teaching, a four-part professional development series created by the Office for Faculty Excellence at NC State University. This is the 2026 offering of the award-winning SPARK…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"source":"","ncst_custom_author":"Diane Chapman","ncst_show_custom_author":true,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"ncst\/default-post-header","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"{\"displayCategoryID\":4,\"showAuthor\":false,\"showDate\":true,\"showFeaturedVideo\":false}","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-ofefacultyforum"],"displayCategory":{"term_id":4,"name":"Blog","slug":"blog","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":4,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":45,"filter":"raw"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/provost.ncsu.edu\/ofe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/provost.ncsu.edu\/ofe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/provost.ncsu.edu\/ofe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/provost.ncsu.edu\/ofe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/provost.ncsu.edu\/ofe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33153"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/provost.ncsu.edu\/ofe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33176,"href":"https:\/\/provost.ncsu.edu\/ofe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33153\/revisions\/33176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/provost.ncsu.edu\/ofe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/provost.ncsu.edu\/ofe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/provost.ncsu.edu\/ofe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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