Reeducation of Melissa Giovanni
A doctorate in geology, a supportive husband and steady job doing what she loved. She still felt life was passing her by until she decided to teach.
Though she liked one thing to have a career, she wanted to have a calling. Teaching environmental science professor at the College of Southern Nevada made her realize that true purpose: making science matter in everyday lives.
The daughter of Greek and Puerto Rican parents, Melissa Giovanni knew teaching was a passion of hers, but didn’t envision herself as a serious scholar. She would practice teaching by assembling her row of stuffed animals as her students. She also knew that she loved earth science at an early age, calling herself a “touchy-feely scientist” for always finding intense passion for science and sharing it with others.
“I was always a ‘save the whales kinda girl,” Giovanni said. “I always preferred animals to people even. Science has always found ways to amaze me.”
Earning her bachelor’s in geology at the University of Arizona and later her doctorate at UCLA, figuring how to make a living off her two passions took a difficult turn during the Great Recession. With no hirings in sight, she set out to Alberta, Canada. Nine years in the freezing cold took its toll on her career, her marriage and her well-being.
Giovanni headed west to work for the Grand Canyon Conservancy Field Institute. While geology was career field that she loved to study, she began to realize the enormous amount of responsibility these organizations take.
“At a point, I realized, ‘oh shit, I’m actually informing the public’’” Giovanni said. “This is meaningful. I can have an impact on how they view public lands.”
Still dissatisfied heavy academic work, she networked with people in the NSHE system, first getting a job at UNLV. Not wanting to wait until her contract expired, she transitioned to work at CSN as an environmental science professor.
Giovanni loves the flexibility of beginning courses for making science something important to people that don’t intensively study the subject. From Netflix documentaries to running through a list of EPA regulations that get repealed or implemented, Giovanni does her best to make non-science majors understand the impact that the government and science has on people every day.
She felt more activated after the 2016 election. After Trump’s victory shocked the nation, Giovanni realized that educating the public on the importance of science and climate change was more important than ever in light of his position on climate change.
“I think I cried for like two days after that day happened,” Giovanni said. “I was just staring at my TV at 3 a.m. in complete disbelief.”
As climate change has become a bigger issue in recent years and the Trump administration has rolled back hundreds of environmental regulations that worsen it, Giovanni has injected more politics in the class and into her life, attending and speaking at rallies for March for Science.
She attempts to avoid partisanship however, because she realizes politics regardless of leader or party directly impacts her work, the years of her life she spent studying and trying to improve the environment for the future.
“Being a part of the March for Science the past two was so crazy,” Giovanni said. “I never expected we would have to just be on the frontline for so much of these issues.”
Giovanni had to keep her decorum as an educator while also trying to make sense of how to teach her subject to people when only a slight majority of the country believe in the existence of climate change.
“The Vulcan part of my brain says to just give people the facts, but most people aren’t receptive to feeling like they’re wrong,” Giovanni said.
Knowing that she couldn’t simply preach to others with heavy facts like Spock, she began to realize that people instinctively tried to fight against facts that contract their world view when they perceive it as a threat.
By illustrating how it can affect people in their daily lives, Giovanni has even reached others that may have initially opposed her.
“I had a Trump supporter in my class actually admit that he was wrong about so many things about science and politics because of me”, Giovanni said. “It was one of the first time I did any of this that made me realize ‘wow I’m actually making a difference!’”
As a result of her approach, Giovanni’s class boast high attendance and student counts, with over 200 students in her classes.
Even other current UNLV students that moved on remembered her fondly. Mya Constantino, a journalism student on campus, fondly remembers how passionate she was about the course and how much she made the topic relevant to her life.
“I just love how cool and intelligent she was,” Constantino said. “She was so funny, and really knew how to connect with us. I really loved taking her course.”
Giovanni has bought a home and will be up for tenure in 2020 at CSN. She was not expecting to find a purpose in being a college professor, but she reignited her passion for science and forming connections with others. Making science matter will always be the legacy and a learning experience to her.