Did you reserve your spot at BIC Cafe?! If not, here’s a little interview we conducted with Dr. Walden to help us all get to know her better.
1) Are you a morning person or a night owl?
I am most definitely a morning person. I love the quiet of the mornings, sitting still with a cup of coffee, or even the busy mornings when work is getting started and I can sit and write in the bustle of the BIC office. Call me old, but asking me to stay up late (I won’t even begin to tell you what constitutes “late” in my book) is a special sort of punishment.
2) What is your favorite food?
True to my state, I love Tex-Mex. Chips and salsa are the ultimate comfort food, and I love just about any combination of meat, cheese, and tortilla you can dream up. I also love just about anything with kale (I know it sounds either trendy or gross, but it is so good).
3) What is/was your favorite teaching moment?
I don’t know that I have a favorite teaching moment with a specific person or class—or it might be more accurate to say that there are too many to name here. But I can say that there are moments I look forward to every semester. I love hearing my students laugh—with me or even at me—because it means that they know that even when they are confused, stressed, tired, or all of the above, that they don’t have to take themselves too seriously. I love an intelligent, controversial debate, when I can tell we are really listening to one another and internalizing new ideas. I love that as useful as stasis theory is, I can never explain it correctly, and this just helps my students remember it more. In short, those truly BIC moments are my favorite teaching moments.
4) What are some of your hobbies?
My hobbies: I love to bake and cook. I will say I’m more of a rustic baker—I don’t like messing with icing cakes or frosting cookies. But I make a mean coffeecake. I love to read cookbooks, old and new. I am teaching myself to crochet. Of course I love to read, but I am also a huge fan of Netflix. (Can Netflix be a hobby?) I used to dance—ballet—and play the oboe, and I look forward to having the time to do those again. Pilates is the closest I get these days, and I enjoy this as well.
5) What type of music do you listen to?
Music. Well, let’s see—Can I just say Christmas music and be done with this question? Just kidding. I tend to use music to facilitate work, so some classic Whitney Houston (throwback to growing up in the 80s) got me through my Master’s thesis, Amy Winehouse and Adele got me through the Ph.D., and Sara Bareilles tends to be good background music for my current research. I also really love bluegrass; I love to sit on the deck in the late fall evenings and enjoy some music and good company—might be a groups of friends, or just my husband and son, but bluegrass always fits the bill.
6) If you hadn’t become a professor, what would you be doing now?
If I hadn’t become a professor, I think I would have enjoyed a career in public health. I love education, and I would really enjoy working to communicate medical information to a broad public.
7) Would you rather have an all-you-can-read library (with every book ever written in it) or an all-you-can-eat buffet with all of your favorite foods?
This might surprise people based on my food research, but I’d have to say I’d choose an all-you-can-read library, hands down. I love so many types of books—as long as the library came with plenty of built-in reading time, this would be a dream.