ASU Education Scholar Mari E. Koerner

A Garage Full of Sun Devils

Mari E. Koerner is dean of the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University. Before participating in a panel on what makes a great teacher, she talked in the Zócalo green room about Arizona sunsets, Christmas carols, and why people keep her up at night.

Q:

What word or phrase do you use most often?


A:

Yup.


Q:

What are you keeping in your garage that you should have thrown out already?


A:

All my husband’s sports paraphernalia. Everything at ASU has a Sun Devil on it, and everything with a Sun Devil on it is in our garage.


Q:

What do you consider beautiful?


A:

You know, as trite as this may sound, the sunsets in Arizona. They’re absolutely, stunningly beautiful. It makes me feel a little optimistic.


Q:

What profession would you practice in your next life?


A:

I would become an engineer.


Q:

What’s the best class you ever took?


A:

Gee, I don’t even know if I took a good class ever, and I’m the dean of a college. The best class I ever took was in my doctoral program, a curriculum class that made me look at things differently.


Q:

What keeps you up at night?


A:

In my job it’s people—people are sad, people are mad, people aren’t happy, people aren’t doing their job.


Q:

What’s your go-to karaoke song?


A:

Oh, I love Christmas carols! I love “Feliz Navidad.” I listen to Christmas songs all year long. And I use Christmas plates all year long, and I’m not religious. That’s my go-to song. I sang it on my walk this morning.


Q:

What three items would you bring with you to a desert island?


A:

I would bring my iPod, except I would have no place to plug it in, but let’s say we had something generated by solar energy, so I could listen to music. I would bring photographs of my family. And I would bring a comfortable chair.


Q:

What’s your greatest extravagance?


A:

Shoes.


Q:

If you had one more hour in the day, what would you do with it?


A:

I would put my feet up on the coffee table, and I would read the newspaper, maybe The New York Times, maybe just the local paper. And I would watch a TV series, like Happy Valley or something from the BBC, or House of Cards, and just watch episode after episode.


*Photo by Aaron Salcido.
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