When the Watchdog Staff aren’t working on getting news out to the Bellevue College community, most of us are in class. While in class, professors can make an outstanding impact on students’ lives, so The Watchdog staff wanted to highlight some of our favorites at Bellevue College. While registering for classes (winter quarter registration is currently open), you may want to consider taking a class from one of these wonderful people!
Katharine Hunt:
As a professor, Professor Hunt is first and foremost kind. That’s not to say she isn’t knowledgeable, fun and inspiring – she is, but her kindness is what stuck out to me most. She cares about her students, she cares about their learning and you feel like you and her are in this together. That makes a massive difference, because it means you feel comfortable and encouraged to experiment and be curious in her class, and you learn a lot more as a result. I took ANTH208 from her, and I would recommend it to anyone.
— Seamus Allen
David Spataro:
It is nearly impossible to discuss politics of any kind in our nation without a clear indication of bias, yet Political Science professor David Spataro has the unique ability to do just that. This fact makes Dr. Spataro a very good teacher, but his compassion, patience, pragmatism and knowledge make him a great one. I took his class in the very first fully remote quarter post-COVID, and he accepted the reality of difficulties students faced in adapting to the new normal in a way that no other professor I had at that time or since has been able to do. As a professor with a vested interest in the well-being of his students beyond their academic progress, he set up several one-on-one Zoom meetings with the students to ask simply what he could do to help, to check on the status of the students and their physical and mental health, focusing largely on setting his students up for long term success as opposed to limiting the interaction to academic status and progress. Teachers and professors come and go, bosses too, but the really good ones stick with us forever.
— Adam Schalberg
Lauren Barylske-Zaidi:
Lauren Barylske-Zaidi; I had her for English 201. She was by far one of my favorite professors to have. Her personality was very bright and bubbly which made the class so much more fun. Especially when the class was at 8:30 am. She is younger than most of the other professors I had, and that made that class so interesting. She was able to make relevant jokes and knew how to get everyone involved in the conversation. She also had a very interesting teaching style and was always trying to engage everyone in the lesson. Through the whole class we had to write a research paper, she let us do it in any way that we were comfortable. This made such a big difference. Everything feels so much more relaxed while still learning so much. I would definitely recommend her to anyone who tends to struggle in other English classes because her teaching style really helps work around those struggles.
— Eliot Gentiluomo
Anthony Tessandori:
I have met Anthony Tessandori exclusively via Zoom, and throughout the entire quarter he consistently showed a kind and engaging personality, making virtual learning a better experience than I thought it would be. He is always willing to clarify and help out, and he enjoys seeing engaged students.
He is passionate about anthropology (I took BioAnthropology with lab), and the coursework is interesting and in reasonable amounts. Activities ranged from class discussions to card games with taped hands. In one activity, we had to extract the DNA of a grape with tools he sent us home. My favourite assignment consisted of classifying primates by examining their remains. I was learning, but also having fun.
At the end of the quarter’s last lecture, he gave a powerful and passionate speech on the importance of anthropology today, in a world where racial hatred still exists.
— Luisa Loi
