Staff Spotlight: Tyler Dorholt

02/09/2023

Tyler Dorholt is an Assistant Professor, Director of the Writing, Rhetoric, and Communications Program, and coordinator of the Digital Storytelling Studio at ESF. He recently earned tenure-track- faculty status after serving at ESF since 2018. Tyler has held jobs with comedian Louie Anderson, Guinness Brewery in Dublin, and over 40 total jobs. We sat down with Tyler to learn about some of his favorite things about ESF and life.

Q: What would you like ESF students to know about you?

A: That my courses, and my approach toward teaching, celebrate process and the articulation of process, rather than what might qualify as a polished product. I care about the well-being of every student, including wading through not only the challenges of academia, but also all the finicky and interconnected challenges we face just in being human and present.

Q: What is your favorite tree and why?
A: The willow tree. There was one that hung over the entire backyard of one of my childhood homes, and it became the portal to many new worlds for me.

Q: Do you have a favorite ESF memory?
A: Bringing the documentary film The River and the Wall, and one of its stars, field biologist Heather Mackey, to campus for a screening, workshop, and discussion.

Q: What do you like about being a part of the ESF community?
A: That almost every conversation we can have with students, and other faculty and staff, reminds us of why we're here, even if we can't find the language for it, and then how every conversation can be seen as the beginning of a potentially robust collaborative experience. What that experience is remains exciting, and what will keep me thinking beyond just my own understandings of the work I do and the spaces I'm grateful to explore upon.

Q: What are your hobbies?
A: Dancing to records with my two young kids; trail running; reading across most genres; taking photographs and making short films.