Eric Meyer, once a student, now a professor, talks about his time at Meramec
Kimberly Morice
-Sr. Staff Writer-
Almost 21 years ago, a man who had just become a father walked into STLCC- Meramec’s advising office. He planned to audit music composition classes, just wanting to learn the skill but not receive the credit. Enrollment Management Coordinator and former adviser, Kim Fitzgerald, was the first adviser he met with.
“Fitzgerald said, ‘Why do you want to do that? If you’re going to be here, you might as well take it for credit, just in case,’” Eric Meyer, English professor and honors program coordinator, said. “I had a pretty decent job, I didn’t need a college degree, that was my attitude.”
Fitzgerald talked Meyer into taking classes for college credit, not only music classes, but a College Composition I class as well.
“All of this was so reluctant on my part. I had no confidence. It just wasn’t me. I wasn’t smart enough, I wasn’t anything for college. But I trusted Kim, and I trusted my first Comp. teacher. I just trusted people,” Meyer said. “It was a great experience. Not only that, they talked me into honors, because I qualified based on my placement tests.”
Meyer sits at his desk in Communications North, where many tattered books line his shelves and his Washington University diplomas hang above his desk. His life and career path changed while attending Meramec, something that happens to many students like him.
“It’s obviously been the best thing for me. I ended up changing careers, I ended up getting three degrees and actually working here at Meramec and running the program that I graduated from. It’s crazy, these things don’t just happen,” Meyer said.
While attending Meramec, Meyer was pushed by one of his instructors to publish some of his writing, which meant joining the school newspaper.
“My Comp. I teacher thought that my work was really good and I thought that she was really crazy. I hadn’t been in school for nearly ten years, and I said that I can’t be good at what I’m doing,” Meyer said. “She told me about different opportunities, and then she told me about The Montage.”
Meyer became involved at The Montage, developing a close relationship with Rich Michalksi, the former faculty advisor at The Montage and full-time faculty member in the English department for many decades.
“Again, I had no confidence. Then I just slowly got involved. I ended up becoming, I can’t remember if I was page editor, I might have been features editor. Eventually I became managing editor. I worked on the layout design, everything,” Meyer said.
Though he’s not involved with The Montage anymore as a faculty member, he still reads it and says he admires the changes it has gone through since his time on staff. The Montage has been winning awards in the past few years that it won when he was on staff in the 90s.
“The Montage has changed after [Michalksi] retired and quickly passed away, it had to reinvent itself. It went to a part-time instructor for a while and it did really well. I worked with the communications department to get the Montage back to a full-time instructor, of course the administration might not like that because it is now much more powerful,” Meyer said. “I think that The Montage is back to where it was, probably better.”
Meyer was eventually offered a job at Meramec as an English instructor and honors program coordinator.
“Before I even graduated from Saint Louis University with my master’s degree, which was the minimum degree I needed to teach here, I had this job,” Meyer said. “It was very competitive. It wasn’t the good old boy system.”
Since being with the college, Meyer has witnessed many changes throughout the years, good and bad.
“The college has changed in some really great ways. Physically it’s gotten a little better. We still don’t have space for some students, and we actually had more students in 1991,” Meyer said. “Certain areas of the college are better, certain areas of the college need improvement.”
Since attending the college and having a first-hand student experience, Meyer’s main goal as an instructor is to make sure the current students have a good experience.
“I hope that we don’t lose sight of what students need every day. I think that people, certain administrators, in the past have been very interested in feathers in their caps and career building. It’s not always in the interest in everyday students,” Meyer said.
Meyer’s role as honors program coordinator puts him in situations every day that involves students.
“Through this program I work with students every day. All day long students are in my office talking to me about what I was dreaming about 20 years ago. For me, I’m almost living my youth through every student who walks through the door,” Meyer said. “It’s rewarding, but it’s draining. I go home tired every night, and then I have to do my own grading and lesson planning because I’m still primarily an instructor here.”
Meyer says he hopes that the college continues to keep the student’s best interest in mind as they make further changes in years to come.
“I see students every day, so when the college makes a decision that somehow harms them, I just find that strange and that’s not part of my world. They may have some logical reasons for doing things, but I don’t always see that clearly,” Meyer said as he leaned forward in his desk chair, clasping his hands. “I do see how it affects students, and the student and instructor relationships. Anything that harms faculty that affects students, I’m interested in.”
How Meyer got his start at Meramec reflects how many students start out at the community college. Instructors value and care about their students’ success so much that many times they don’t hesitate to get involved in their college career, which usually pushes students to do their best.
“So many of us have these experiences. It should be the college experience, that you come and you’re not sure of yourself, I mean that’s the 2-year college experience. There are people who go right out of high school who are confident, maybe even cocky, who go off to some nice university that may continue or not, but they’re not growing like we are. We really grow, and sometimes it’s drastic,” Meyer said.
Meyer’s journey through Meramec is certainly an example of what students can achieve at a community college level. He says that witnessing the change people go through is a very rewarding part of his job.
“We just grow so much here and I love to see that,” Meyer said.
