(Photos by Andrea Hahn)
May 09, 2012
Ten Questions With ... Craig Gingrich-Philbrook
Job on campus and department you work in: Associate professor in the Department of Speech Communication
How long at SIU Carbondale: 14 years
Hometown: Chico, Calif.
When you were a youngster, what did you want to be when you grew up? An icthyologist.
If you could choose another profession, what would it be and why? I’d work as an advocate/administrator in a not-for-profit arts-funding organization, to create more community connections to the centrality of aesthetic communication in the development and preservation of culture.
What is one random fact about you? I had an epiphany about leadership as a child, trying to bring an escaped horse in from the snow. I tried to use my scarf as a lead, and he kept shaking out of it; when I just talked to him and began walking, he came home just fine. I draw on that experience, metaphorically, all the time.
What three things are at the top of your bucket list? I think I am so present-oriented, in the Buddhist sense, that I don’t think I have a bucket list. I feel very fortunate to have the life I have.
What is your favorite way to spend a day? Conversations with students about performance art projects, reading some contemporary poetry, writing, working on sound art, and making a good meal -- a little of everything. Balance.
If you could take a photograph of your life, what would the picture be? My partner, Jonathan Gray, and I, talking over coffee in the morning.
What is the best advice you ever received? It’s the inscription in Wham: “Be ashamed to die until you have achieved a victory for humanity.” Something like that.
Favorite TV show (still running or ended): The Catherine Tate Show
What is your pet peeve? The fear some people have of silence.
What would you like your gravestone to say about you? No gravestone, only tree, as ever, in light and shadow.