Current Release: September 11th, 2007 | Vol. XXIV Iss. 10

PHOTO COURTESY DR. CARRIE WHITE

Dr. White, adventurer extraordinaire

Emily Altmann

emaltmann@vwc.edu

The English department has seen further additions this year, including a new adjunct professor, Dr. Carrie White, Ironman Marathoner.

Before she found her way to VWC, White taught courses at Guilford technical college and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she received her Ph.D. in 1996. Before she attended

UNC, White was an undergrad at Duke University and apart of the ROTC program. However, teaching English was never her original intentions, White had majored in psychology and Latin, and after graduating from Duke, she was a naval officer for a few years, but it wasn’t quite for her.

“I sorta fell into getting my master’s in English,” she said, “I had been told I didn’t write very well, so I never took any English classes, but it turned out I actually could write pretty well.” She went on to get her Ph.D. because, “A friend said I’m too eccentric to teach high school,” so she anticipated a career as a college professor.

“Teaching is a huge passion of mine. It’s the best job in the world,” she said. White does her best to be there for her students, “I want to be as available to them [her students] as I can be,” she said.

She even puts her home phone number on her course syllabus.

Beyond academia, White is a runner. She says she enjoys running because “the longer you go the better it is to stop.”

White began by running on a treadmill in a gym in front of a television. She’s never routinely watched TV, but while on the treadmill, she found herself in the middle of a “Law & Order: SVU” marathon. Before she knew it, she’d run 13 miles.

She’s passed her treadmill days, and to date, White has run eight marathons. In Williamsburg on Sept. 8, she ran a half Ironman in 6 hours and 20 minutes.

A half Ironman is a long 1.2-mile swim, a 56 mile bike ride, and a13.1-mile run.

Aside from her athletic adventures, White loves to write. In 2004, she won a scholarship to teach American literature for two semesters in Slovakia. She wrote a book about her experiences, titled “Running Naked through the Streets.”

“I felt like that’s what I was doing. I felt vulnerable. I was definitely pushing the envelope.” She’s also written “Reading Roddy Doyle”, a work for her dissertation, published by Syracuse University Press. Currently, she is writing a detective novel.

White also writes for The Virginian-Pilot, as well as a monthly column for one of its sister-papers The News and Record in Greensboro, N.C.

She’s been writing this column for The News and Record for four years. The column, called “Go Carrie,” is all about getting people out and doing something active. Topics have ranged from boxing and rock climbing to donating platelets and volunteering at the SPCA, but she says the coolest thing she’s done to date is skydiving.