Employee Profile - Danny Collum

Name: Danny Collum

Position: Professor of English and Journalism, Humanities Division

How long have you been employed at Kentucky State? 14 years

What do you enjoy most about your role? That occasional moment when I can almost see the light bulb going on over a student’s head because she or he has just perceived some bigger or deeper truth about the world and her or his place in it. It doesn’t happen every day, but one of those moments can keep me going for a several months.

 What has been one of your favorite moments at Kentucky State? When we began offering the degree program in Mass Communications and Journalism. I was hired in 2005 with a charge to help grow the English program’s journalism minor into a full-blown major; and we did it.

What do you enjoy doing when you’re not working? I write columns on media and popular culture for two monthly magazines, which is work, but not teaching, and I enjoy it. I write novels. I’m on my third although only one has been published. Outside of my profession, I enjoy spending time, going places and doing things with my wife, Polly Duncan-Collum, and our four children (two adults and two near-adults). Also, around home, I work in our orchard, blueberry patch and vegetable garden, which I usually enjoy having done after I’ve done it. I also follow both popular music and politics pretty fanatically.

What is one thing you couldn’t live without? Caffeine, especially sweet tea.

A fun fact about me is… I once served 30 days in D.C. jail for my part in a Reagan-era nonviolent anti-nuclear protest.