By Kaitlin Osucha
WC Senior
This piece was previously written for ENG 224: Introduction to Journalism.
A chemistry professor at Washington College known for her caring demeanor and her passion for soil science, Dr. Leslie Sherman has taught in the science department for 24 years. Heavily influenced by her parents’ backgrounds as educators, Sherman teaches because of the purpose she finds in the interactions with her students.
When asked who her role models are, Dr. Sherman first seemed stumped, but then immediately knew the answer: her mom, a kindergarten teacher, and her dad, a college professor, who taught her early about the value of helping others through education.
Dr. Sherman describes her mom as a great listener and a very creative person who always found fun ways to engage with her students. Sherman emulates her mom’s creativity by using experiential learning methods such as hands-on labs in the outdoors to study the local environment.
“I always try to be as much like her as possible,” Dr. Sherman said.
She describes her dad as curious and energetic, adding the phrase “joie de vivre,” meaning the joy of life.
Dr. Sherman, exemplifying these traits, experiences joy through the students she teaches.
“I’m having to constantly learn, helping [students] think through things and try to think through issues.” Dr. Sherman said.
She finds support and community through the interactions she has with her students. During a rough time in Sherman’s life when her mom was sick, she found an outlet through teaching, saying that the classroom environment allowed her to feel energized and caused her sadness to dissipate.
One of Dr. Sherman’s best friends, history professor at WC Dr. Carol Wilson, said that Sherman is a great teacher who implements “creative ways to just get students thinking beyond reading their book or listening to a lecture.”
“Dr. Sherman makes students [think] about how chemistry is part of all of our lives,” Dr. Wilson said. Dr. Sherman strives to encourage all students, regardless of major, to understand the environment around them.
Dr. Wilson also describes Dr. Sherman as curious and kind, which, coincidentally, are traits that Dr. Sherman appreciates in her role models.
Before becoming the teacher she is today, Dr. Sherman was curious about music, wanting to be a flutist as a child and not finding an interest in chemistry until after college.
Her childhood was heavily influenced by music.
“My grandmother was a piano teacher, so my mother encouraged us,” Dr. Sherman said.
Not only did they play music such as piano and flute, they also listened to music from radio stations playing bluegrass on Saturday evenings to Bach, which her dad enjoyed.
“We always had music on,” Dr. Sherman said.
Music was a constant in their home, though her dad was not a musical person. Since he passed, Dr. Sherman often plays Bach to remember him.
As Dr. Sherman grew up, she began to think of what she wanted to do with her life and what she wanted to study in school.
Dr. Sherman decided to go to a small liberal arts school. She wanted “small classes” and the ability to take “a little of everything,” such as philosophy and biology, while also pursuing music.
As she continued college, she began to show an interest in science courses, besides chemistry, which ironically she did not like until later in her life.
“I took my science courses, and I realized how much I loved it,” Sherman said. At this point, she also was beginning to doubt her choice to be a flutist, as many girls in the field were so competitive that it was not fun anymore.
She was a teaching assistant for a science course and often helped her mom out in her kindergarten classroom, which allowed her to experience teaching. One day, she made an experiment to teach students about volume by filling soda bottles with varying amounts of water and blowing into them like a flute.
The realization that she found her future career hit her: “Oh, I kind of like this.”
Dr. Sherman had many opportunities after college. She worked on an acid rain project, which she still happily talks about, often finding ways to include it in her teaching curriculum. She worked on Capitol Hill for a year doing environmental policy.
After a few months, she realized she did not want to do politics; instead, she wanted “to be a scientist and inform policy.”
Dr. Sherman, always wanting to help others, decided to sign up for the Peace Corps.
“I was going to go over and save the world and do research,” she said. Like much of her previous career ideas, her plans changed. The Peace Corps wanted her to be a teacher, specifically for middle and high school students, for two years.
Dr. Sherman is an experienced traveler from the various sabbaticals her dad took to Israel, her favorite place, and England. She was eager to teach overseas, although this was different than her previous plan.
In Cameroon, instead of Honduras where she thought she would be, she taught chemistry to the older students and physics to the younger ones.
“I loved the little kids…[and I] really became a part of the community,” Dr. Sherman said.
She loved teaching so much that she began to apply for PhD programs while still in Cameroon.
“I’d have to travel and fax my application stuff, and my dad would then send it” to the various doctorate programs she was interested in, Dr. Sherman said.
After attending graduate school at the University of Wisconsin, she worked at Providence College in R.I. It was a 3 year program, and when it ended, she began to look elsewhere. Sherman wanted to stay on the East Coast because her family was in the area. She was also intrigued by the environment; it was different coming from the Midwest, which sports large sprawling fields and small lakes while the East Coast has many rivers and, of course, the Chesapeake Bay.
Dr. Sherman ended up having an interview at WC. She was drawn to the College because she “wanted to teach at a small school” and was interested in the interdisciplinary approach.
When she drove to campus for her interview, it was the first time she saw the Chesapeake Bay in person, and she fell in love. She describes it as “going to see the moon,” as you see it many times online but then she finally saw it for the first time in person.
Senior Halina Saydam, who did a Cater research project with Sherman and now has her as her thesis advisor, describes her whimsical and caring nature.
“She appreciates the little things and she always has fun stuff to say,” Saydam said.
Saydam also commented how she has never had Sherman as a professor, but because of Sherman’s support and caring demeanor, “it [feels] like I’ve known her for a long time.”
Saydam fondly tells a story of them sampling soil together, talking and getting to know each other. While rolling equipment around the Toll Science Center, Sherman had to stop for Halloween candy on one of the tables, specifically Whoppers.
“If there’s one person I want to be when I’m however old she is, it’s Leslie Sherman,” Saydam said.
Photo courtesy of Leslie Sherman.
Photo Caption: Sherman in her natural habitat: traveling around the world.