PROFESSOR GEISS

Hannah Feinberg ’24

Contributing Writer

Ask just about everyone on Trinity’s campus if they know Professor Geiss and they’ll in all probability light up. Via his German accent, he chuckles and jokes and normally has a delighted demeanor about him. It is practically not possible to run into him with out a delighted demeanor.

I have recognized Geiss due to the fact my freshman year at Trinity. He is the academic liaison for the women’s ice hockey group and tennis group on campus. He normally sends emails to the group at the starting of the year and even hosts us for a back-to-college BBQ at his house in Wethersfield, exactly where he has his unforgettable “dinosaur cake”: a lemon glazed pound cake molded into the shape of a dinosaur. 

I met with Professor Geiss in his workplace on the second floor of the McCook constructing. It is an uncommon spot for an environmental science professor’s workplace to be situated, as he is sandwiched in amongst public policy and law professors. His workplace wall was littered on a single side with these magnificent, higher-resolution photos of numerous elements of nature. On the other side, his shelves had been lined with an assortment of environmental science and geophysics books, a single of which he pulled out and showed me that his PhD advisor wrote. He nevertheless keeps in touch with this advisor quite a few years later, and Geiss credits him for his good results in finishing his master’s at the University of Minnesota his advisor was the a single who convinced him to pursue additional education in America soon after getting his bachelor’s degree at university in Germany.

3 of my teammates and I enrolled in his class final year known as The Earth’s Climate. We met at eight in the morning on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Each morning, the 4 of us, half-asleep, would meander to the back of the class and sit with each other. Geiss, who is normally up and even responding to emails at five:30 in the morning, would energetically wander back to the location exactly where we sat to see which of the 4 of us showed up that day. It was far more than he did for quite a few of his other students in the class. It was nearly as if we had been now the wily kids and he was a nun attempting to hold her students in verify. Remembering this practical experience soon after hearing about his story, I had the realization that it was a complete circle moment for Geiss even even though he in all probability didn’t notice it.

Geiss fell into the position of faculty liaison sort of haphazardly. Faculty had to total service outdoors of teaching and had been told they really should do service that they delight in carrying out. Somehow, he stumbled into athletics in spite of by no means playing sports in college. Robin Sheppard, the associate A.D., produced a pitch to the professors to turn out to be a faculty liaison in a professor seminar. Geiss dismissed the thought at the time, but by way of teaching classes he found his favourite and ideal performing students had been student-athletes, mainly because “you’re spending 20 hours on your sport that some nerdy kid can invest on studying geophysics, as they really should.” He discovered in his interactions with them that they normally had excellent attitudes.

Numerous years later Sheppard pitched the thought once more, and, this time, Geiss approached Sheppard about a position and she enthusiastically asked him which group he would like. Geiss had no preference, except for swimming to which he went “swimming…swimming is sort of like obtaining a goldfish for a pet!” 

He believed it is far more entertaining to see students he knows and watch them carrying out what they enjoy, it didn’t matter which sport. He initially became the faculty liaison for women’s tennis. 

At some point, he had a women’s hockey player in his initially-year seminar. Her two ambitions, he repeated, had been to graduate from Trinity and to turn out to be the ideal division 3 hockey goalie in the nation. About Christmas time he figured he much better verify out what the ideal goalie in division 3 appears like. He met her pals and parents and had excellent interactions with them, so he began watching far more games. The former women’s hockey liaison, who was leaving to turn out to be Dean of Students, saw Geiss in the rink and asked if he wanted to be our liaison as effectively. From there, it was history Geiss has been our liaison ever due to the fact and the group loves him.

Geiss is the epitome of a father figure. He is there to laugh with us, cry with us, or even just to sit down and have a conversation more than coffee. Professor Geiss is an instance of a professor who goes out of his way to interact with his students. He desires to make sure their good results and is normally accessible to support students attain their ideal. His face lights up when he sees his students, an indicator of his intense passion for teaching. It is a specific connection to be capable to know your professors in the capacity that we do on campus.