professor – Houghton STAR

After five years of searching, a Biochemistry professor has been hired. According to Karen Torraca, Chair of the Chemistry department, Paul Martino will join Houghton faculty in the Paine Center for Science.

Torraca stated “We really expect faculty to mentor students in the Christian faith. Having that particular combination of having someone who is really good at science, in particular biochemistry, and mentoring students from a Christian perspective I think is a really tough combination to find.” In Professor Martino, the hiring board believes it has found that combination.

Photo by: Nate Moore

Torraca said she appreciated Martino’s academic and professional experience. She recalled the board was “excited that he has lots of teaching experience already so not somebody who had just gotten out of graduate school.” She continued, “He comes to us from Carson Newman, which is a four year institution, where he taught Biochemistry as well as Organic Chemistry so he has teaching experience which has been great in terms of having him bring those experiences into the department”.

Additionally, Torraca explained that there was also the expectation for applicants to present the research they sought to conduct while working at Houghton. Martino said the expectation for further research was a major reason why he wanted to teach in an undergraduate college. He remarked, “I came back east to follow my dream of being at a small undergraduate liberal arts college where I could actively do research in my field.”

This semester, Martino is teaching general education Chemistry courses, including Introduction to Nutrition. Colleen Shannon ‘17, a student in Martino’s Nutrition class, observed the difficulties of teaching the class, and stated, “I think overall one of the most challenging parts of teaching a gen ed course is that you have a wide range of students, where some students are chem[istry] majors or on the bio[logy] track and they have a lot of background and consistency in their bio[ology] education and then there are other students who are just checking a box off.” In this situation, she acknowledged the positive difference it makes to have a teacher who knows and is passionate about the subject material. She recalled a particular instance when Martino excitedly explained proteins to the class and allowed her to feel some secondhand excitement for the subject.

In this class, students are able to witness not only his experience in teaching and the field of Biochemistry, but also the impact of his Christian perspective. Another Nutrition student, Jessica Robinson ‘18 commented on his method of presenting faith into his teaching, and stated he has “The awe of ‘Look what our God is able to do’… Our God is so cool that he is able to do all of this and make our bodies so intricate.” Shannon added his commitment to Christianity is evident “implicitly in the way he carries a joyful spirit in the way he teaches.”

Houghton welcomed 11 new faculty members this year, including new photography and digital imaging professor, Ryann Cooley. Professor Cooley comes to Houghton after several stints as a photographer in both the advertising and missionary fields.

However, before pursuing his career in photography, Cooley worked as a financial planner. In the late 80s, on what is known as Black Monday, the stock market crashed and Cooley marks this as the start of a series of events that happened in his life where he said God started speaking in his life, “convicting [him] of [his] motivations for being in the financial sector.” After the revelation that money was his “primary motivation”, Cooley said that he realized he could “only serve one master”, something which “shook [his] world.”

Eventually Cooley stepped away from the financial sector and said that this time in his life was one without “a sense of direction, motivation, or drive.” The next six months were spent in prayer, Cooley said, almost “like [he] was in a monastery.” This intense period of prayer ultimately left Cooley with a dream in which he was “a photographer for missionaries, traveling the world to document various missions” as a graduate of Brooks Institute, a school he heard about in high school.

Initially following his dream, Cooley contacted Brooks Institute and learned that both the tuition and admission requirements were out of reach. Dismayed, he began to look elsewhere. Yet a month later he received a call from Brooks offering him admission and scholarship. After being accepted into the undergraduate program at the Brooks Institute under the Alumni Scholarship Program, Cooley immediately enrolled and successfully completed his degree. Following his graduation, he began to contact missionaries to see if he could come along on their missions and take photos. When Cooley was denied these opportunities, he said his next step was to “go and make a name for [himself] as a photographer,” so he moved to New York City, “the hub of photography”, in order to do so.

In NYC, Cooley worked as an assistant photographer for several years with his first client being Levi’s. His work in advertising gradually grew and was followed by an opportunity to shoot for a Presbyterian mission organization while they were on a mission in Mexico for three weeks, an opportunity Cooley said he “jumped at.” His work with missions organizations continued with groups like the Arab World Missions in Morocco and the International Bible Society based in Colorado Springs.

Following the birth of his son and the start of his family, Cooley said that his career direction changed. “My dream had come true,” he said, and it was now time to return to the advertising world, which Cooley said he sees as “much [of] a mission field” as those he had worked in before, calling advertising a “foreign country itself.” In 2012, after a reasonable stint in advertising, Cooley pursued and received his MFA in Photography, Video, and Related Media from the School of Visual Arts in NYC so that he could teach.

Before coming to Houghton, Cooley looked into and interviewed at several schools, but he said it was the students at Houghton that stood out to him because they were “easy to talk to and articulate;” students he wanted the chance to work with. After receiving and accepting the position at Houghton, Cooley and his family moved from New York City to Angelica, and he said that the transition was big, but that he was “ready to move on from the city.”

When asked what he hopes to bring to Houghton, Cooley said that he wants to bring an “NYC edge,” and introduce more conceptual art that will help in his goal of “pushing the boundaries of what people expect of art.” Additionally, he would like to see the number of photography classes grow to include more advanced classes that offer students the opportunity to specialize in areas such as lighting. Also important to Cooley is the relationship between the music and art departments. He hopes to help bring the departments together in combined performances, and said that there may be a collaboration with Professor Brian Johnson in the works for this year’s Christmas Prism.