As he walks through the door, the classroom fills with music (at least in his mental jukebox); Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World.” He’s wearing jeans and exuding a confident swagger. He’s there to teach sociology with a few music references and clever humor peppered in. His advice to the world, “Watch less TV, and listen to more music.”
He hits the ice and knocks around hockey pucks in his spare time. He’s a proud Canadian. He is Dr. Steve Williams, associate professor of sociology. Let’s get to know him.
What is your philosophy toward your work?
I actually love my job, and I realize just how rare that is. I know how lucky I am. I come to work every day with a smile on my face. I try to do my best to appreciate it every day, and to keep learning and improving. To teach at the university level is an honor, and it’s a very serious responsibility. My philosophy is to just keep trying to do better all the time, and appreciate just what a fantastic place a university is. It’s a unique institution in society.
What is the one thing that should be taught in school that isn’t already?
Cell phone avoidance: the ability to be able to step away from social media and message checking. I think that’s something that could be taught with the proper psychology principles. I swear there are students in class that are physically antsy because they can’t check their phone. They become nervous and anxious. It has physical symptoms. It might seem trivial, but teaching avoidance might be useful.
What inspired you to go into teaching?
Great professors who made me want to learn more when I was in university. I realized that by learning, I was becoming a more aware person. It didn’t take me long to realize that if I could do that for other people, what a fantastic thing that would be. How important and how thrilling it would be to actually inspire someone to keep learning, and they realize in a couple of years they know things they didn’t before, and feel more aware and engaged with the world; and if I made them feel that way, it’s just an amazing thing.
What helps you to get your students thinking more deeply?
My primary goal is to get them to understand the social construction of reality. It’s like an intellectual threshold that you pass through when you actually start to see it. Because it’s much more comforting and most people actually believe that a lot of our daily lives, society and laws, are based on something absolute; when in actuality, basically everything is socially constructed and therefore is completely and utterly deconstructable or changeable at any time. When you really wrap your head around that concept, you suddenly see the entire world in a new way.
If you were stuck on an island, how did you end up there? What one book would you bring?
I ended up on that island because I spent too long snorkeling and I missed the boat. That’s almost happened a couple of times. I get too carried away looking at the pretty fishes.
If I were going to bring a book, I’d bring the dictionary because if you read it in the right order, every other book is in there.
If you could have a theme song that played when you walk into a room, what would it be?
I’ll go with “Rocking in the Free World” by Neil Young.
Which decade do you feel the most special connection to and why?
The late 60’s. It must have been an amazing time to be a teenager or in your early 20s. Ideally I’d have moved to San Francisco just before that, like 1964 or something, and gotten a really cool apartment or loft in Haight-Ashbury, and just watched the changes in society.
It was an era of amazing social change: the women’s movement, the anti-war movement and the hippie counterculture. All of it was happening at once and great music was always connected to it. There was this optimism that the world was about to change for the better, and that young people were going to do it, because they were idealistic, and the old forces were about to be wiped away. It didn’t turn out quite that way, but what an amazing time to be young and alive that must have been.
What small thing annoys you so much it should be a crime?
The stupid ads that pop up when you’re trying to watch a video online and you can’t skip it – especially the 30 second ads when you really want to see a cute video of the cats playing with the dogs, but now you’ve got to watch this stupid tire commercial for 30 seconds.
Have you ever misinterpreted song lyrics in a funny way? What song and what was the misinterpreted lyric?
In Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville when he says “I blew out my flip-flop; stepped on a pop top.” I used to think he said “stepped on a Pop Tart,” which would’ve been a really weird thing to step on. I’d think “why was that Pop Tart there, and why does he have to go home just because he stepped on a Pop Tart?”
