"I didn't know how much I enjoyed teaching until I taught here. I feel like I'm making a difference."

-Nat Hong, OC professor

Nat Hong - author, WWII Danish historian, OC faculty

Nat Hong, who has taught English Composition and a Politics and Literature class for 11 years, is one of many outstanding faculty at OC. Nat holds a Ph.D from the University of Washington and has a strong interest in Danish WWII history.

As a teenager, Nat lived in Denmark with his parents who translated thousands of pages of Kierkegaard, the 19th century Danish philosopher and theologian, from Danish to English. Later, Nat would do graduate research on the underground media in Denmark, using his findings to write Sparks of Resistance: The Illegal Press in German Occupied Denmark, April 1940-August 1943, published by the University Press of Southern Denmark. Nat shares his story...

What was your upbringing like?
My hankering to keep learning; pursue research on the power of the press to challenge injustice; and bring an inclusive, skeptical, and free-thinking spirit to the learning experience are things I got from my upbringing. I grew up in a family of eight children, with a philosophy professor dad, and a poet/writer mom. Our household dinner table always had a few student hangers-on and every meal was basically a freewheeling seminar.

How did you end up teaching?
I worked as a printer for 14 years, which had all the elements of being an educator. I helped teach small press publishers, political activists, Native communities, union members, musicians, and social service organizations graphic arts and print production skills. I began graduate studies in the history of journalism while in printing. I worked the night shift, helped raise two young children, and took one graduate class at a time.

I completed a Master's Degree at the University of Minnesota and my Ph.D through the School of Communications at the University of Washington. I taught part-time at OC for a year then worked for three years as Associate Editor on Princeton University Press' Kierkegaard's Writings series.

How do you keep current in what you teach?
I keep up in three areas: composition, political literature, and communication during the German occupation of Denmark. Over the years, I have attended and participated in national and regional conferences. I also have a reading list to work through during the summer months.

In 2004-2005, I spent a year as Guest Researcher at the Resistance Museum in Copenhagen, Denmark researching two extensive sets of scrapbooks kept during German occupation in 1940-1945. I also published an article in the Danish National Museum's quarterly magazine and have had another article accepted for publication in Humor: The International Journal of Humor Research. Keeping active in research and writing hones my capacity to teach those skills.

What are your proudest moments as a teacher at OC?
My most fulfilling moments come when a class and I vanquish barriers to learning, such as fear, alienation, and marginalization. These include when a first-generation college student (a student who is the first to go to college in a family) gains the confidence and skills to go on to law school, or a female technical student gains success in a traditionally male profession, or when a shy student tells me that this is the first class she has felt comfortable to participate in - that gives me hope. When a middle-aged, retired Navy man writes about a childhood trauma, sends it off to his estranged sister, and some small cathartic crack appears in the wall separating them, it gives me faith in the human power of communication and the value in teaching it.

What recognition have you received for your research or teaching?
I have received awards for teaching and advising excellence at Olympic College. I have also received grants from organizations interested in cross-cultural exchange between the U.S. and Scandinavian countries, Gannett journalism scholarships, and Fulbright and university fellowships.

What do you like to do in your spare time?
During the past four summers, extended bike trips in Denmark have occupied me - some of them solo and others with family and friends. I enjoy staying in Youth Hostels and cooking my own meals. Traveling this way can be an inexpensive way to see and experience a place where all of the senses are involved - the smells of sweet wild roses, the pungent farmyard mingle, and the weather and the wind. Simple food and bed are simply delicious at the end of the day.

How has OC inspired you?
OC is a place of chances, hope, inquiry, community, challenge, dispute, mutual learning, and a way out and up.

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