By Stephen Cook
He has traveled on foot to Helena, Mont. and canoed back on the Missouri River. He has worked in a vineyard in Germany. He builds bridges during the summer as part of the Ironworkers Union. He is a published author and is on track to getting his Ph.D.
Patrick Dobson, adjunct associate professor, History, has been at the college since 2009. He describes himself and his life as always constantly discovering things.
One of the ways he has done this is by traveling on foot. Dobson said one of the reasons that led him to go on his trip to Helena, Mont. and back in May of 1995 was the want to feel that space. For Dobson, walking instead of driving provides a different experience.
“You’re no longer watching more TV, it’s just like the windshield of the car is like another screen,” Dobson said. “You’re actually in it and you’re moving at a different pace and you’re actually able to experience nature and the bigness of it as you can’t when you’re driving around.”
Although Dobson used to work in an “expensive hotel”, he said he’s never stayed in one. For him, if it takes more than a bag over his shoulder, then it’s a pain. Movement and spontaneity are what adds value to a trip for him.
Dobson said even though you may walk in the city a few blocks or even a couple of miles, you don’t get a sense of your insignificance in those settings.
“There’s something really beautiful to that insignificance,” Dobson said. “You know if you think you’re significant, go ahead and talk a walk out there, find out how long that lasts.”
After taking the five month long trip to Helena, Montana and back, Dobson started his writing career with the Pitch Weekly. He first wrote columns for the publication before being hired as an investigative reporter. Later around 2002, Dobson was asked to teach a journalism class at UMKC. He then worked various jobs until coming to the college to teach history.
Dobson said his goal in teaching history is to show how complicated it is, with everything having a historical development.
“There’s very few sort of spontaneous births in history, everything comes from something else,” Dobson said. “Students come into my class and they’re sometimes not ready for that, you know they’re ready for George Washington chopped down the cherry tree and then he became President and then we had another President and that’s all fine and good but that doesn’t show us the complications of human beings acting, doing, thinking.”
Chris Gaignat, student, said Dobson is passionate about what he teaches, and that helps to make it interesting.
“He’s fired up, he likes it, you can tell he cares about it,” Gaignat said. “It makes learning easier when a teacher can keep you interested and he does.”
In addition to teaching history at the college, Dobson has been working on getting his Ph.D., having just handed in his dissertation at the beginning of March.
Vincent Clark, professor and chair of history, was on the interview committee that hired Dobson. Clark said Dobson finishing his degree is praiseworthy, showing a lot of perseverance.
“He’s been very dedicated at getting his dissertation done,” Clark said. “That’s really hard to do …especially if you’re working very much.”
All of this work has meant a lot to Dobson. Up until this point, he said everything he has ever done was to ‘show those people.’
“I was the fat kid, I got picked on, I got beat up on, I was always trying to please people, I was always trying to be somebody,” Dobson said. “In the end, the only person I was trying to prove anything to was myself, and now I can like do these things without having that agony, having the agony of carrying around this incredible baggage… I mean I did it, what did I need to do it for, I didn’t need to it for anybody.”
As a professor, Dobson reminds his students that life is bigger than what is in the Midwest. It is important to “put yourself out there”.
“Don’t think that it’s grow up, get a career, work for 35 years, retire and die,” Dobson said. “Do something else: go travel, go question what these people have told you you’re supposed to be doing, what these people have told you you’re supposed to be satisfied with… Most people I think wind up being afraid of anything new.”
Contact Stephen Cook, editor-in-chief, at scook35@jccc.edu