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Imagine a man casting his fly into a Wyoming river on a warm August afternoon, as he slowly reels it in- rejuvenating himself for another semester. He takes his chances with Mother Nature, seeking answers to the unknown, to bring home and educate students at Northland College.
Now move the scene to a crowded office with books askew on the shelves, picture the approachable, and slightly bearded man with his dog, Cody at his side, and you have a glimpse of Kevin Schanning. He is a world traveler, but doesn’t forget his bird dog, Cody on campus when he is off to far reaching Australia, on a spring class expedition.
And what is his greatest love? Greater than dogs, fish, or trekking to New Zealand, Belize, or Nepal, Kevin says quickly, “My wife, Sjana is my greatest passion.”
The former Milwaukee-Glendale resident describes himself as “competitive, compassionate, caring, open minded, and a redneck intellectual.” He wasn’t the typical Northland student. “I was drawn here to mainly fish and attend class once in awhile.”
In Sociology of the Environment class, Kevin realized the environment didn’t need management, but its people who need the management. Since the late 1980’s, he found personal interest in the environmental education movement and treaty rights issues. With strong feelings, he expresses, “I was at the docks while it was all happening and I could see both sides of the problem, the fervour of people trying to defend their rights, the conflict was over who had the right to the resources, and that’s why I became a sociologist.” Later on, he went on to add, “There is too much inequality in the world, that’s the problem.”
Kevin graduated from Northland College in 1989, with a major in Sociology and a minor in Economics. He truly is a believer in liberal arts education and its importance, and says, “It gives you new ways of seeing the world. That’s how you grow as a person. A liberal arts education makes you more tolerant of others who are different from you.”
Learning new perspectives keeps him motivated to teach and he goes on to say, “the students have a lot of energy and all I do is challenge that energy by introducing new ideas and perspectives in liberal arts.” Kevin’s goal of teaching sociology shows students the “extent of inequality by focusing on ‘hidden privileges,’ for being who they are… for example: white, American, male.”
Students get real world experience on one of Kevin Shanning’s projects, The State of the Wolf -- a five year venture funded by a private entity-- co-lead by Pam Troxell from the Timber Wolf Alliance. Two new students have been hired to work on the project during the summer and fall of 2004 tabulating surveys, researching, and analyzing data.
Kevin seeks to share his understanding the management of the wolf population in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan using the methods of sociology. “There is more than biology involved with managing a population. There is a social aspect,” he states. The survey looks at how people’s attitudes in WI, MI, and MN affect the threatened -- at one time endangered -- wolf population. The Wolf project uses social caring capacity as its focal point. Kevin says, “What number of wolves can people tolerate? Once you know that you have a base number to analyze. Wolves are doing their thing and will keep doing their thing whether we watch them or not.” He uses the example of his tolerance for bees, to relate to the social caring capacity humans have for wolves, “bees are fine, as long as they don’t sting me, or come around where I eat; the same is true for wolves.”
I remember sometime last year when the survey came to my mailbox. Although it was a survey, it individually pained me to read that some people want to poison wolves. The questions, simple and direct, made me think hard about what I personally knew about wolves in this area: nothing. It was pathetic to recognize my lack of knowledge about such a key subject and that was the point.
Kevin beyond a doubt cares about people and the environment through the State of the Wolf project, the Food Insecurity hunger assessment of Ashland and Bayfield counties, and his recent lecture at the Institute. Organized by the Northland College Student Association (NCSA), Kevin’s lecture, “Sexual Deviance: Exploring the Unconventional,” explained why some sexual acts are seen as extremely deviant, while others are seen as normal deviance and how that related to all of us. “I try to treat people with enough care and respect as I can. I didn’t always succeed, but I try,” he says.
In five to ten years, Kevin’s visualizes Northland College and the Institute as, “nationally recognized as ‘The Liberal Arts school’ that has a passion for saving the planet. Our students, faculty, and staff must create a vision for a just and equitable society and put that vision into practice…and in turn people will come here to learn to make the world a better place.”
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Comments
Ricky | Oct 12th, 2004
Very well done just like your other interviews.
melanie mae | Nov 2nd, 2005
thanx!
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