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Tim Metayer

After finishing high school, Tim Metayer took some time off from formal education, working as a dishwasher and a US postal employee. After about four years, he says, his mother offered him what sounded to him like a pretty good deal: “She said I could live at home for free if I would go to college.” So Tim applied to, was accepted and enrolled at Johnson State, intending to get a degree in elementary education.

After taking a political science class with Professor Jerry Anderson, though, Tim’s academic focus changed. “As a class, we were reading about race, class, gender, moral and ethical decision making. . .and I read some more on my own. It really made me realize how socially and culturally constructed so much of our thinking is. I became a ‘disciple’ of sociology.”

Tim changed his major to political science with a minor in sociology and anthropology, and immersed himself in the subject matter, outside of the classroom and in. “A friend and I got a radio show on WJSC (the college radio station) where we discuss current events, politics, historical events.” Additionally, he submitted opinion pieces to the campus newspaper, Basement Medicine, sharing his perspectives on politically charged subject, such as his decision to become a vegan. And he served as a campus campaign manager for Ralph Nader’s last election campaign.

His professors were extremely supportive of Tim’s enthusiasm for sociology and political science. “Professor Anderson gave me the chance to speak in class on the ethical and moral implications of veganism. And Professor Jerry Himelstein let me lead two class sessions in our sociology class on crime policy and power.”

Tim will start a graduate program in political science at the University of Albany in the fall of 2010, where he’ll study political theory.  The foundation and support he received at JSC will serve him well as he pursues his Ph.D.