Glenn Gamst Getting Glenn Gamst is the essence of a professor of psychology, he loves to talk about his professional life. But outside of his professional life as a psychologist is a person with great dimensions and varied interests. You just have to know how to understand his dry wit in order to access these areas. Dr, Gamst looks every inch the part of an experimental psychologist from his glasses to his row of pens stacked neatly in his shirt pocket protector to his vertically-striped dress shirt and dress slacks. You would think him a rather formal person, that is, until you notice that his tie contains pictures of classic cars. His answers are short, punctuated by a dry—possibly the driest at ULV—subtle wit. He loves, really loves to center the conversation to his research projects—multicultural mental health and multivariate statistics. But there’s something else there. One light emerges with the St. Louis Rams. A Rams fan since he was “a little boy,” Gamst’s affinity for football was not fostered out of experience. Gamst only played one year of football—in ninth grade, on the third string, although the team picture from Eliot Junior High School still hangs in his office. “I liked it enough,” he said, “but I became a hippy instead, so I began my journey into the late ‘60s.” Imagining a guy who—at least on the outside—is now a veritable square in bell-bottoms, tie-dye and an Afro is at least mildly comical. But Gamst’s day came in the Rams’ recent heyday. And this came as no surprise to him, as he had been predicting a Super Bowl win since 1976. “In ’99, students from around the country e-mailed me because they knew how excited I was about the Rams,” he said. “I’ve been threatening this for decades, and students would just smile and say, ‘Yeah, right.’ It just goes to show if you predict something long enough, it’ll eventually happen.’” A picture of Kurt Warner, Gamst’s favorite player, even adorns his office door. “We’re called ‘Warnerites,’ I guess,” he joked, although, with his barren delivery, it’s nearly impossible to tell. “What a shame it all collapsed on him. Rags to riches to rags to who knows what now.” Gamst also used to enjoy taking his family to games, but since a sour experience in 1994, he has since put a halt to the experience. At a Raiders-Rams game, a picture of which hangs on his wall, a brawl erupted. “People were throwing beer cans, blood everywhere, fights,” he said. After that game, he swore he would never put his family through something like that again. As our conversation continued, Dr. Gamst also revealed that he held a black belt in Taekwondo. Gamst has been involved in the sport off and on since he graduated from college. “I like the discipline,” he said. “I like the attention to detail that it requires. I couldn’t afford to do it until I got out of college.” In addition, the owner of a ’56 Chevy Nomad lights up when talking about another hobby—classic Chevys. “I’ve loved classic Chevys since I was a teenager,” he said. “I had one when I was 16 and destroyed it.” Now, he still melts like legions of car guys at the sight of a ’55, ’56 or ’57 Chevy. “I’ve found those to be very moving,” he said. “It has kind of that nostalgic look. It’s just something about it. It’s hard to put your finger on it, but it’s just very special.” THE PROFESSOR Gamst enjoys “students who pay attention, are inquisitive, curious, who are reasonably hard workers,” and the list goes on: “completeness, timeliness, ideally, critically evaluating, integrating fact and context.” As a professor, the assured Gamst holds confidence in his abilities: “I think I’m an excellent lecturer. That’s my strength. I know how to explain stuff clearly and succinctly, and hopefully in an interesting manner.” RETURN TO FACULTY LISTmailto:GAMSTG@ulv.edu?subject=HELLOHome.htmlshapeimage_1_link_1
Glenn Gamst Click on the picture to send an e-mail