Below is transcript of our conversation with Robert & Denise Fanning:
David Nicholas:
I'm David Nicholas, and this is Central Focus, a weekly look at research activity and innovative work from Central Michigan University students and faculty. For the past two summers, CMU students have been able to soak up the nicer weather and nurture their creativity on Beaver Island. This week and next, we’ll talk with Robert and Denise Fanning. He's a professor of English and she is the Art Coordinator for CMU Libraries…
How did the original idea and coordination of both of you taking classes up there for a week over the summer?
Robert Fanning:
I want to go back a bit. At the bio station, at CMU's bio station on Beaver Island, there was at one time a commitment to the arts or an involvement of the arts. along with all of the scientific programming that they have there, which is all terrific. But then it went away for a while. And the new director, Kevin Pangle, and his wife, Wilene, really wanted to bring that back. So, we were invited a couple years ago. They reached out to us. Someone at the bio station, maybe Denise has the origin story better than I do, the details, but somebody had heard of, you know, this poet and this artist who were a married couple, and they thought, that would be perfect to have, a writer and an artist teaching classes at Beaver Island. So this summer was the second year in a row we've done it and hope to do it annually now, if possible.
DN:
Other things that you've taught, Denise, have you had the pleasure of a setting like this? I mean, classrooms are fine, but there's certainly nothing that can beat the more of a hands-on and direct experience, anything quite like getting kids out and in nature?
Denise Fanning:
No, I have never had an opportunity to teach in an environment like this. And what Beaver Island offers is just like pure magic. It's so beautiful. It's just an island full of vast ecosystems. There's every environment a person could desire to tap into. And you go to this place and so many students come not knowing that they have a relationship with nature, but as soon as they're immersed within it and asked to look closely and asked to find what connects to their being and what ignites their interest and curiosity, they all end up immediately inspired to find their own voice in connection with this new environment that they're discovering.
DN:
Same experience for the writers. I would think that a lot of the points that Denise made would carry over. Is there anything unique that you find in working with the creative writers when you go?
RF:
It's really special to bring students to Beaver Island and to really be inside of the poem. That's sort of one way to put it. we're so often in the classroom, you're looking at a book, you're looking at words on the page, you're analyzing the text and then writing, you know, within these concrete walls of Anspaugh, you know, and the imagination is sort of locked in. But on Beaver Island, they're sitting on grass or on the lake shore, on the beach. They're wandering through trails. And we sit in the woods, we sit on the beach, we sit in front of the lighthouse. There's all these locations we go to around the island to write. They're quiet, they're listening to birds chirp, they're wiping a spider off their leg, you know, as they write, but they're in it. And there's something, like Denise mentioned, connection. It's so much about connection. And my course is arranged thematically. So, each day we wander the island and look at the island and nature through a different lens. So, The first day is all about connection. When students come off that boat and we're there to greet them, you can see they're sort of dazed. They've been on the ferry for two hours. And like Denise said, there's sort of a little bit of time where they have to kind of assimilate to this place. And it takes a day or so, but not very long. And by the time they leave, there's like group hugs and they stay in touch. they'll start having an online chat showing each other pictures of butterflies and like it becomes this really quick, intense, close community in just a matter of five days.
DN:
When we pick up our conversation next time, Robert and Denise will both talk about what happens when the students return from Beaver Island, how they share their newfound inspiration with other students.
