When a woman wearing a flannel shirt and jeans walked in the classroom on the first day of Rob Pockat’s Core 1 class during his freshman year, he thought she might be a janitor or a housekeeper.
“All of a sudden she introduces herself and says, ‘I’m Lucretia Crawford,’” he said. “Going over her credentials, she says ‘I have my Ph. D., but don’t call me Dr. Crawford, just call me Lucretia.’ That easy, laid-back style wasn’t your typical college professor.”
That “laid-back” style of teaching is what Crawford, an associate professor of English who has taught composition, Core, and honors classes since she was hired at Lakeland in 1983, called her “living room teaching philosophy.”
“I want to treat my students as if they are in my living room,” she said. “I want to have conversations with them, I want to be engaged with them, I want to know what they’re thinking about. A lot of the time I’ll ask this question that says, “Invent your own question” to get them to be the authority. I really think of my classroom as being my living room.”
Pockat, an IT graduate assistant, graduated last year with degrees in Education and English. He had Crawford frequently for his English classes, and said he gained respect for her “living room teaching philosophy,” and tries to emulate it when he teaches.
“I like people who are themselves, who are genuine, and she’s a real genuine person. She gets along with everyone on campus. She’s always in a good mood. I just have a lot of respect for her and what she’s been able to accomplish,” he said.
Pockat respected her so much that he nominated her for the Outstanding Faculty Award, an award given to Lakeland professors who are also alumni. Crawford is a Lakeland alumna. She graduated in 1980 with a degree in German and went on to receive her master’s in English from the University of Notre Dame in 1983. In 2002, two years before getting her doctorate in English from UW-Milwaukee, she won the Underkofler Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award. And on Oct. 15 at the Alumni Celebration Banquet, with her husband, son, and sister in attendance, Crawford won the Outstanding Faculty Award.
She talked about her students (past and present) now working at Lakeland in her speech.
“I’m just so lucky that I get to see the results of what I do. In this building I could go upstairs and find one of my students, [or] I could go downstairs and talk to Rob, who was one of my students. I’m so lucky that I get to see that I did make a difference because they’re here.”