Professor Randoms: Andrew T. Dolan, Professor of Religion

By Maureen Kolodziej
Collegian Staff
March 1, 2006

Name and title: Andrew T. Dolan, Professor of Religion

When is your birthday? Dolan was born on Aug. 16, 1970.

What is your hometown? Dolan was born in Doylestown, but grew up in Florida, California and various spots around eastern Pennsylvania.

What has been the most challenging/exciting experience as you developed your career? “Opportunities to teach an expanding range of courses,” Dolan said. “I’m now teaching the Latin courses at La Salle. Getting to pick the focus of the 300-level Latin reading courses is a thrill. This semester we’re focusing on women in antiquity. In the fall, the primary and secondary-source readings will be on ancient Roman medicine.”

What techniques do you use in class to keep students alert? “I try to select course material that will elicit and convey my passion, with the hope that it will be contagious,” he said. “On occasion, it helps for me to raise my volume suddenly for a word or two, a technique that worked for Brother Edward Davis, FSC, who taught biblical studies and Greek at La Salle for many years.”

If you could teach students one thing, what would it be? In terms of a skill, he would like to teacher students how to read more carefully and critically.

What was the last book you read? Dolan last read John P. Meier’s A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, vol. 3, Companions and Competitors.

What hobbies do you enjoy? “I used to be an avid comic book fan. Now my five-year-old son, Daniel, is into superheroes, and we’re able to act out stories and enjoy my old comic books,” Dolan said. “That’s as much of a hobby as my role as teacher and parent permits right now.”

If you could have any superpower, what would it be? “I know about too many superheroes and their powers,” he said. “I suppose super speed would be the most useful superpower for me, and it would be fun.”

kolodziejm1@lasalle.edu