Sean Bernard Sean Bernard, assistant professor of English, sits behind his desk, quietly tossing with a small, dark red orange between his hands. The strangely colored fruit is a blood orange collected on a trip to the Claremont Farmer’s Market, which he attends every weekend with his wife of three years. He and his wife are still discovering places to visit in and around their new hometown of Claremont, a city much different from Tucson, Ariz., where he spent 22 years of his life prior to moving. “(Arizona) has the best Mexican food on the planet, probably in the universe,” he says. Bernard’s mother is a teacher, too, though he says following in her path was not a life-long plan. As a child he thought he might study law, but the decision to teach was not made until he went to college. Reading and writing fiction always fascinated him, so he studied creative writing at the University of Arizona before heading to the University of Iowa for graduate school. There he met his wife, also a teacher and creative writer. When not working on his book, a fiction piece very “under wraps,” or watching “too much” college basketball, as he says, he and his wife enjoy taking day trips into nearby cities such as Pasadena or to the beach or mountains where they can hike or go on bike rides. “We like traveling but haven’t gone to many exotic places,” he says, mentioning that they would visit Minnesota and Wisconsin often when they lived in Iowa. He played baseball until he was 12 or 13 and says he would have kept playing if a “not-so-good” league existed. A Diamondbacks fan, his love of baseball is still second to college basketball. But he says writing and reading are his biggest hobbies, along with pushing play on his iPod. He is a member of the National Book Critics Circle and occasionally submits book reviews and critical essays, mostly on novels and short stories. Besides collecting blood oranges, which he says are “amazing,” at the Farmer’s Market, he and his wife also stock up on avocados and indulge in their love of guacamole. Some of their other newly found favorite places in Claremont are restaurants Viva Madrid and The Press. Since starting at La Verne, Bernard says he has strived to bring his composition skills and love for teaching to the creative writing program. Used to teaching at the college level at the University of Iowa, he says he aims for a comfortable, student-oriented environment centered on the fun of writing. “I try to create a lighthearted atmosphere in the classroom for the most part,” Bernard says. “Most of the classes I teach are lecture-based but I like sitting at student level, asking them questions and letting them talk to each other rather than talking at them.” He has also joined the small group of professors who bike to work. It has allowed him the chance to try out downtown restaurants using “scrip,” given to all bicyclists or carpooling faculty, but he says this is only one of the good things that result from his daily 20-minute trek. He looks forward to teaching an interdisciplinary honors course with Jon Leaver, assistant professor of art history, which will combine creative writing and visual art. RETURN TO FACULTY LISTHome.htmlshapeimage_2_link_0