Jordan earned her Ph.D. in Chemistry from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and began her work at UAFS two years ago, choosing the campus because she wanted a place where she could envision herself for a number of years - the faculty, staff, and students at UAFS felt like home.

It’s obvious in talking to her (or visiting her office) that Jordan is passionate about chemistry, but she is also very passionate about her students. “I like helping students realize that their professor can be approachable and cares about their success, and isn’t just scary or focused on getting through the material. Organic chemistry has such a bad reputation, so I work really hard to make it a more positive than expected experience. I tell bad jokes/puns, use real-life analogies, add a project application of organic chemistry to everyday life each semester, try new/different teaching methods based on student feedback, make students coffee, keep tissues in my office, hold student’s babies if need be, make appointments at all hours to help my students, come early, stay late, whatever I can to help my students throughout the semester. It’s incredibly important to me that students know they can reach out for help, usually with chemistry but with life as well.”

During her years as an undergraduate, Jordan realized that not everything came as easily to her as it did in high school so she had to learn how to study and manage her time to do better in her classes. “Those skills have been incredibly helpful throughout graduate school and in the last 11 years of teaching college. I am often teaching multiple courses with different subjects and requirements in addition to doing committee/service work and supervising research students, so having time management and organization skills has been essential to keeping my head above water.”

Though she loves her work as a scientist, the thing she enjoys most is getting to know and interact with her students. “It gets kind of boring just talking to myself the whole lecture, so I like an interactive class where students can share their thoughts, feelings, and understanding of the world with other people.”

Some advice that Jordan would like to pass on to everyone is, “As soon as you get lost, get found! Whether that means going to a peer tutor, starting or finding a study group, going to a professor’s office hours, meeting up with your lab group mates, etc. Be proactive about finding a way to make the material approachable. Go to your professor’s office hours that they have set aside specifically for helping students even if you don’t have questions; if you are going to ask for a letter of recommendation, the better we know you, the better the letter we write is!”

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