Dr. Trisha Brown is an assistant professor of sports and exercise science for the College of Nursing and Health Sciences at West Texas A&M University.
Brown began her career as a grade school teacher, but later decided to move into higher education.
“I started as a K-12 teacher,” Brown said. “I was teaching health, adaptive P.E. and physical education. I was also coaching varsity volleyball and softball. Then, I transitioned into higher education and started as an adjunct professor while my children were small. When I wanted to transition back into full time, I had to go back to school. I went from a master’s student to a graduate student, to a doctoral student. And my doctorate degree is in sports management.”
Brown has always enjoyed teaching at any level.
“I love teaching,” Brown said. “It is a way to serve others. And I love the group that I get to serve because whether it’s elementary, middle, high school, or college students, I love the connection. I love being able to be helpful and a part of assisting someone to get where they want to be. It’s very fulfilling, and I take it as a privilege.”
Brown teaches courses to undergraduate and graduate students alike.
“In the undergraduate program, I teach programming for the health and wellness of children,” Brown said. “We have students in that class who are from the education department and our department, so it’s a little cross curricular there. I also teach theory and practice of non-traditional games, and adapted physical education. That’s a group of students on campus with intellectual disabilities, and so my students get to work with that group once a week, and it fosters these conversations that might not be easy to have outside of the course. In the graduate [program] I teach in the sports management track. So those courses, I have legal aspects of sports, sports marketing, ethics in sports and exercise science, and leadership in sports and exercise science.”
Brown describes her teaching style as leaning away from traditional lecture and testing.
“A lot of professors teach basically like direct instruction and then formative assessment,” Brown said. “I teach more experiential learning if you will. I want students to feel confident and comfortable with an actual hands-on approach to learning. I guess my philosophy is kind of ‘show me what you know.’ I want to make sure they are able to both teach and do it well.”
Brown discussed how she hopes for students to feel comfortable approaching their professors.
“One thing I wish students would do is feel comfortable about going outside of the academic scope and actually approaching their professors as a person,” Brown said. “That’s part of why we’re here. We have research, and service, and teaching that we have to do, but that service part, many of us really want to serve the students.”
