Lockwood retires after 32 years at Northern

A Montana State University-Northern English professor retires after teaching for 32 years at the university.

Steve Lockwood came to Northern in 1988, and taught English Literature and Technical Writing.

He said he was also able to teach film and computer classes.

"Mostly, I enjoyed the student interactions in any class," he said. "Just the back and forth dialogue with students - that's the best part of any of the classes."

When Northern went to a remote learning format, he said, all of that changed and had to be in writing.

Academically, the most significant thing that he was a part of was the Montana Professor Journal, he said.

"Academically, that was probably the thing that I enjoyed the most," he added.

Northern still hosts the archives of those issues, he said, which can be found at https://mtprof.msun.edu .

"I think the classes I enjoyed teaching the most we had for several years, in the '90s I think a team-taught course that was called an interdisciplinary studies seminar and I taught together with two other teachers for three or four years," he said. "That I think was the best teaching experience I had because we had to be on our toes because there were two other professors in there, so that was fun."

He thinks those classes were the best that Northern offered, he said.

Lockwood said that before teaching at Northern, he taught as a contract graduate student while he was working on his PhD at Indiana University.

After that, he taught as an adjunct professor at Iowa State University for three years then came to Montana, he said.

He received his bachelor's degree at San Jose State University in San Jose, California, he said, and got a PhD at Indiana University both in English and literature. 

He's originally from Kansas City, Missouri, he added.

"Home of the Super Bowl champions, by the way," he said.

As for retirement, he said, he sees it as another adventure.

"I'm not sure exactly what I'll be doing," Lockwood said. "Once we're through shifting all the stuff we want to get rid of at our house then I imagine I'll look for opportunities to volunteer."

He said he doesn't know yet what he'd like to volunteer for because he doesn't know what the opportunities are.

"When I was 18, I worked in Yellowstone Park for a summer and I thought if there were ever anyway I could come to Montana to work I would take it," Lockwood said. "And I just happened to apply for this job when it came up and I was fortunate enough to get it, so I love living in Montana."