Getting Personal: Edward Feser

Photo by: Heather Coit/The News-Gazette

Ed Feser

Each week, we offer a Q&A with a local personality. Today, 49-year-old Urbana resident Edward Feser, a University of Illinois professor of urban and regional planning and the interim vice chancellor for academic affairs and provost, chatted with The News-Gazette's Melissa Merli.

What interests you the most right now?

Supporting and advancing the many extraordinary things our faculty and students are doing on the campus, in all disciplines, even in the face of this unprecedented and ridiculously needless state budget crisis.

Tell us something few people know about you.

I'm reasonably good at ballroom dancing — at least I now step on my wife's toes only occasionally. My wife and I have been taking lessons on and off for years.

What was it like growing up with a park ranger father? Did you spend a lot of time in parks? Which ones?

I grew up in three national parks: Glacier, Olympic and Lassen. I also spent a summer in college working on the maintenance crew in Yosemite National Park. Growing up in the national parks is a real adventure but also quite solitary, especially in the off-season. We lived in remote places in most instances. You became very close to your siblings, and I am lucky to have four of them.

Do you have a favorite national park, and if so, which one and why?

If your jaw doesn't drop the first time you drive out of Yosemite Valley and up toward Tuolumne Meadows, you're not paying attention. However, I have a soft spot in my heart for Olympic. First, it has it all: mountains, sea and rain forest. Second, it was a very active place, and we lived in the thick of it, immediately adjacent to the Lake Crescent Ranger Station, park boathouse and dive locker.

Hanging around and watching your father and half dozen other rangers gear up to rescue a climber off a mountain, recover a body from a lake or fight a fire — then hearing all about it when they got back — was pretty much heaven for an 8-year-old kid.

Most people think of parks as idyllic places, which they are, but they are also where many a weekend warrior goes to make a poor decision climbing, hiking, scuba diving where ill-advised, etc. My father spent a lot of time responding to visitors' lapses in judgment. I was a quiet observer of much of that, and it was exciting and instructive at the same time.

Do you or your family plan to celebrate the 100th anniversary this year of the national park system?

I have great love for the parks, but they're in trouble for a variety of reasons, from poor management, to overuse and careless use, to the general effects of climate change. Having them in the blood, as it were, has made watching their trajectory harder for me over the years, and I can be a cranky partner when visiting them, as my family knows. As a society, we need to use this anniversary to renew our collective commitment to protecting our parks.

I heard you say once that you follow stoicism. Can you summarize it and explain why you follow that philosophy?

"Follow" is probably too strong a word, but I do think the stoic philosophers offer wise counsel for living a good, value-driven life that keeps one's achievements and attainments in perspective. One key lesson is to better understand what you have by actively contemplating what life would be like if you lost it.

You have long said you want to break down barriers within the university so students can take courses in colleges outside their majors, etc. How is that going?

Curricula must be rigorously designed, but we tend to be better at adding requirements than making hard choices about what is absolutely necessary so that students have more flexibility to obtain a breadth of learning. We also have institutional reasons — and especially budgetary reasons — why departments, schools and colleges may discourage students from venturing beyond their disciplines. It's a complex problem, and we've made some progress on the campus, but we can do more.

How do you spend your down time, if you have any?

Outdoors, generally. I run, but less often than I'd like. I read a lot. Amazon Prime — an inexpensive way to have just about any volume at my door in two days — is something of an addiction.

What time do you typically get up? What do you do the first hour of the morning?

Between 5:30 and 6 a.m. I usually read for an hour or so, history or philosophy, something that helps me think about the fundamentals of my job, rather than the specifics. I majored in government at the University of San Francisco, and the program was grounded firmly in philosophy, history, ethics and theology, as you'd expect at a Jesuit university. That grounding continues to serve me well, at work and in life.

What do you consider your greatest achievement or accomplishment?

Becoming a professor is easily the professional accomplishment of which I remain most proud. It isn't easy to do, and the opportunity for impact that it affords is a great privilege.

What do you regard as your most treasured possession?

I have a little illustrated Mass book my mother gave me when I made my first Communion. I'm not an especially religious person, but even as a 6-year-old, I could see how much it meant to her to give it to me, and I've cherished it since.

Do you have a guilty pleasure and what is it?

"The X-Files." I've seen most episodes a couple of times. The understated sense of humor had me hooked from the start.

What book are you reading now? What is your favorite book ever?

I usually have five or six books going at once, but the two I'm most focused on at the moment are "Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis" by Robert Putnam and "The Gene: An Intimate History" by Siddhartha Mukherjee. I don't have a single favorite book, but one of my favorites is Wallace Stegner's "Angle of Repose." I wish I could craft a sentence like Wallace Stegner could craft a sentence.

What's your favorite sports team?

The Fighting Illini and the North Carolina Tar Heels, in that order. I know the Illini Nation is not too fond of the Heels, but I hope folks forgive me, as I did my graduate study at the University of North Carolina.

What would you order for your last meal?

A very smooth bourbon.

If you could be reincarnated after you die, what would you like to come back as?

The last thing I want to do is make Professor (May) Berenbaum angry at me, but definitely not a bug. Too much risk and too limited opportunity to enjoy the finer things in life. A person, I think.

Who are your favorite musicians and why?

I made it a policy when I was dean of Fine and Applied Arts never to get trapped by such questions. All musicians are my favorites! But I will reveal that the first music and band I really admired — the kind of devotion that inspires you to save all your nickels and buy all their albums — was Pink Floyd.

What's the happiest memory of your life?

Convincing my wife to marry me and the births of my two children are pretty good memories.

Which historical figure do you admire the most and why?

Abraham Lincoln. Guided by values but politically savvy, decisive, courageous and a tremendous communicator for his time. We badly need more politicians like him.

What's your best piece of advice?

Listen and listen some more, respect people and be honest with yourself and others. You'll solve a lot of problems that way.

What was your first job and how much did you make an hour?

Leaving aside paper routes and baby-sitting, my first regular job was on the counter at a local diner/burger joint. I probably made something like $3.10 an hour. I learned a heck of a lot; worked there through high school and eventually ended up as a cook and supervisor. Pay wasn't great, but my boss would make me a couple of sandwiches to take with me on long bus rides to football games, a perk that was much admired by my teammates.

What was a pivotal decision in your career and how did you arrive at that decision?

Moving to Illinois in 2004 was a big one. I had earned my graduate degrees at the University of North Carolina and then joined the faculty, so I'd been there quite a while, 13 years or so. Things were going well for me and my family was happy. When people call Chapel Hill the "southern part of heaven," there's a certain truth to that; it's a wonderful place to live. But the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is a truly outstanding institution, and Champaign-Urbana is a great community, and I wanted the chance to be part of the exceptional things happening here and in a big, complex land grant university.

Do you have any regrets in your life? What are they?

I don't have many, but my siblings and parents are in the West, and I've lived east of the Mississippi for 26 years. I see my family less often than I would like.

How do you handle a stressful situation?

Calmly, preferably.