When asked how he got to Milligan, Dr. McDonald said, “The short (and mildly sarcastic) answer is: I drove. *Ba-dum-tsss*.”
The real story of how he got here is a little more interesting. He was born and raised just over the mountains in Hickory, N.C., where he was homeschooled throughout his primary education. In his junior/senior years of high school, he had the opportunity to dual-enroll where he took chemistry, biology, and math courses. He loved his teachers and decided to pursue a career in higher education. Dr. McDonald added, “Weird side-note: Dr. McDonald (no relation!) was my first chemistry professor.”
He enrolled in the chemistry program at Franciscan University of Steubenville and loved learning chemistry while maybe getting into “trouble.” After this experience, his initial desire to become a professor was cemented, and he knew that he wanted to work at a community oriented liberal arts institute with a Christian ethos. He also graduated with a fondness for physical chemistry, and thus enrolled in the University of Notre Dame’s physical chemistry PhD program for the following year. In the interim, he got married, worked as a highly over-qualified lifeguard, and hiked the Appalachian Trail from Vermont to Maine (this was his honeymoon).
While at Notre Dame, he had several opportunities to teach, and he had a blast. This further confirmed his calling to become a teacher. He also grew to love research during this time and really applied himself to his PhD topic. When he finished up at Notre Dame (“five years and 15 pounds of stress later” he adds), he had two beautiful daughters, Rosalyn and Esther, and a desire to continue in research — at least for a bit! That sent him and his family across the ocean to Erlangen, Germany where he worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (Max-Planck-Institut für die Physik des Lichts). They lived there for three years, giving them the opportunity to soak up the culture and learn German.
“Fun fact: We knew literally zero German words when we landed in Nünberg back in 2015. I don’t know what we were thinking, and looking back, that was a bit a miscalculation on our part — live and learn!” Dr. McDonald recalls.
By the time last summer rolled around, he was really feeling the urge to get back to his original calling. He saw an advertisement for an opening at Milligan College; having never heard of Milligan but finding that it was part of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (of which Franciscan is also a part), he became intrigued. He dug deeper and quickly realized that Milligan would be the perfect place for him and his family to (“finally!”) settle down and begin teaching in earnest. He applied for the position, the committee accepted him, and the rest is history.
Dr. McDonald ended with, “If any of you are interested in hearing a bit more about my research or my time in Germany, feel free to ask! Oh, and now I have three daughters (hazel came into the mix at some point in the above story). You might see them and my wife Kristi wandering campus from time to time.”
It is obvious that Dr. McDonald is thrilled to be teaching. When asked what he is most excited for, he said, “There are many things I’m excited about, but the most exciting thing for me is the prospect of working and interacting with students. College was such a formative time for me, and the mentors I had in that time were instrumental to my growing as an individual. I’m pumped about finally paying it forward!”
When asked what impact he wants to have on his students, he says, “I want them to see that chemistry is not this big, scary boogeyman lurking in the darkest corners of their transcripts. Chemistry isn’t just a grade you have to swallow; instead, it’s awesome, fun, interesting and very applicable to almost any career path. I want my students to be able to remember that for the rest of their lives.”
In answer to the question, “what would you want someone to ask you to get to know you?”, Dr. McDonald responded: “‘What’s the difference between a well-dressed person on a unicycle and a poorly-dressed person on a bicycle? That should get the conversation going.”
Dr. McDonald keeps busy while not at work. He enjoys living his life with his wife and kids “which ranges from picnics at the park to reading bedtime stories to digging that nasty old moldy half-eaten apple out from under the couch that one of my kids left there probably a month ago. I also like to tinker with wood/metalworking, backpack and watch stupid videos on youtube.”