Jeff Scanlon
English
Faculty member since 1986
B.A. Middlebury College
M.A. Middlebury College (Bread Loaf School of English)
What drew you to Loomis?
I was about seven years old when Bob “Bobby” Howe '80 asked me to come to his house after a Saturday morning practice at the Loomis rink to play and we went to the dining hall, Shimkus Gym, the weight room, and later back to the rink. It was AWESOME. I couldn’t believe that he was able to live at a place like LC—I was hooked. I knew I had to go to Loomis as a student and return to work here.
What is your favorite book to teach and why?
My favorite book to teach is All the King's Men, by Robert Penn Warren. The language is brilliant, the structure is clever, the narrator is witty, and the ideas that spring from discussions are compelling and endless—I could go on and on.
If you could meet any writer, who would you pick and why?
In addition to the predictable and clichéd Shakespeare, I'd like to meet Emily Dickinson to see just how unusual she was.
How did you decide to become an English teacher?
I was taking courses at Trinity College for an M.A. in history and took a course on American literature in the 1920s for history credit. I had one of those moments of epiphany and knew I had to become an English teacher.