Mother, wife and professor: Jennifer Popple holds all of these titles.
Popple is married to Samantha Keehn, a professor in the music department at Augustana College. They have been married for five years and are the proud parents of two daughters, 2-and-a-half year old Anya, and 6 month old Fiona.
“Sam and I had not thought we were gong to have kids,” Popple said. “One day we were sitting around, just hanging out, and I said, ‘What would you think about having kids?’”
Popple got pregnant the following fall, and quickly learned that your plans don’t always work out like they are supposed.
“I was offered a position with the theater department while I was pregnant with Anya,” Popple said. “I came back to work full time, four weeks after Anya was born.”
Popple is a professor at Augustana College. She teaches in the theatre department, and is also the co-chair of the women and gender studies department.
Sophomore Keila Saucedo is a double major in theater and women and gender studies. She has taken multiple classes with Popple.
“Dr. Popple does such a good job of making sure her students know class is a safe space. That doesn’t mean she has low expectations or won’t challenge you, it means that she realizes many of us have been taught to be silent and submissive in the class room,” Saucido said. “I feel like the students in her classes teach me too because there are so many opportunities for discussion. She creates a community within her classes and encourages us to grow in everyday she can.”
Popple prides herself on the sense of community she brings to her classroom.
“When I think about myself as a classroom professor, I think that the biggest thing that I try to do is to create a sense of community,” Popple said. “I think that is partiality due to the fact that I come from a theatre background, so part of what we do is we’re trying to build a show, and so in rehearsals you have to build that sense of community because, otherwise, your actors are not going to connect to the extent that they can tell the story honestly and emotionally to the audience.”
Popple takes pride in her work as a professor and a mother, but she wants people to know that she is also a feminist.
“I think that being a feminist is sort of the thing that is the bottom layer of what I do,” Popple said.
Popple continues to show her feminist views through her role as a mother and a professor.
Popple is also currently working on the spring production of William Shakespeare’s “As You Like It.”
The play will be on the weekends of May 1-3, and May 8-10. It will take place in Potter Hall.