As English professor and Head of the St. John’s University English Department, Dr. Jennifer Travis has always been ambitious about learning. “My career is really all about learning — I really am committed to trying to learn new things as I am still trying to teach people new things too,” says Travis in an interview with The Torch. “I feel very privileged because my position as a professor at St. John’s gives me the freedom to continue to learn.”

Trained as a 19th century Americanist, Travis majored in English, attending liberal arts college Vassar College in New York for her undergraduate degree. After taking time off between undergrad and graduate school, Travis went to Brandeis University in Massachusetts, earning two master’s degrees: one in English and one in gender sexuality and studies. After years of hard work and research, Travis also obtained her PhD in English from Brandeis in 1996. 

“When I was in college, I had no expectation at all about getting a PhD in English,” Travis said despite her myriad of recent achievements in English. “It was not a goal or anything I was focused on.”

“It was only after interactions in classes and with professors who encouraged me by saying ‘You’re good at this, maybe you should pursue graduate school’ that I thought maybe this was something good to do,” she said.

In graduate school, Travis was given the opportunity to teach, which she “loved, and I loved making the connections with students, and so this really set me on the path of teaching.”

At St. John’s, Travis initially stayed true to her 19th century Americanist training, teaching courses with similar curriculum. However, provided with curricula flexibility, Travis said that she is “able to teach new classes and come up with new ideas.”

Currently, Travis teaches American literature, digital humanities, digital pedagogy and gender studies in a combination of hybrid courses throughout the fall and spring semesters.

Travis says that she enjoys a balanced mix of both in-person and online courses when prompted about her teaching location preference. “I love the flexibility of teaching online classes because I get to reach a lot of students that I would not otherwise reach, so it’s a lot of fun to get to know students.”

Getting to know students on a more personal level is a crucial point that Travis strives to make in any of her classes. “However I am able to reach students and have good conversations and communication with them is what I will do,” Travis said.. “I think the thing that is most important is to constantly remind students that you are present in the classroom.”

While there are many ways to maintain a close connection with students over the computer, Travis utilizes the tactic of “tap[ing] video announcements that I send out a few times a week so my students know I am thinking about them. I like being like ‘I’m here, you can see me and talk to me.”

Travis shared with The Torch that while it may not always be in the terms “extra credit,” she offers flexible accommodations for struggling students and always offers extra help outside of classroom time.

“I want my students to succeed in class, whether that be handing in work past the original due date or my not grading an assignment a student is unable to get in on time,” says Travis. “Accommodating the struggles they are having is extremely important to me.”

Along with her role as empathetic and approachable professor, Travis currently acts as the Head of the English Department, providing curriculum outlines and requirements to the English program as well as advising students regarding course offerings and career advice. 

“An administrative role is a lot — and I think when I was promoted, I felt it was the right time for me to make that transition. It was a good time in my career after solidifying my role as professor to make this move into administration,” reflects Travis. 

Having seen various colleagues tenured and promoted as well as guiding students in the right direction, Travis says that “getting to help shepherd them in different highlights of their career is really wonderful. To be able to connect with students, see what their needs are and mold the curriculum to match some of those needs is something that is very enriching.”

In her time as Head of the English Department, Travis has modified some of the requirements for minors so English and writing minors can be more accessible, allowing the department to reach out to more students. 

Outside of her teaching and administrative positions, Travis has studied pedagogy — the method and practice of teaching, especially as an academic subject or theoretical concept — and has had her Pedagogy work published. Recently, Travis and a colleague from Villanova had their work on gender in American literature published by Cambridge University Press. 

Currently aiming for publication, Travis is working on three in-progress projects. “One is an autoethnography of a family through the COVID crisis who works in healthcare; another is about literary and cultural representations of the charlatan in American culture; the third is a project with Dr. Susan Rosenberg — a colleague in the SJU art department who is an art historian and curator — which includes looking at documents and images at the Davis Library on the Manhattan campus.”

In spite of her many scholarly accomplishments, Travis says that her proudest achievement “is when I watch my students succeed not only in the material they are doing in my classroom, but when they go on and make some of these things into their lives and pursue their career goals, go to graduate school or law school, go into careers and media, go into teaching or go into all these things that shows that the stuff we did in the classroom really mattered.”

If you are interested in reading Dr. Travis’s works, click here!