Meet the professor whose office hours include free coffee, cookies and crayons

Ms. Wemhoener is the beloved professor at Virginia Tech who is known for throwing tea parties during class, insisting that you choose a crayon for a good first week of classes, and simply an individual you’ll be drowning in love with before you even know it. However, these three facts do not describe even 25% of the lovely woman she is and I can’t possibly craft my words to fully express Ms. Wemhoener, so I visited her during office hours.

What’s your favorite book, movie, food, and place?

Book: Oh, that’s so hard…I mean I’m a literature teacher, how can I tell my favorite book?

Film: My favorite film is “To Kill a Mockingbird” because I think it’s perhaps one of the finest works of film ever done.

Food: I just can’t do that. The minute I say something like African stew, I think of Thai food or I think of kimchi. I love kimchi. I love it! I love hamburgers, so what are you going to do? My favorite food depends on the season and what country I’m in.

Place: Home is special to me, obviously for the people, but the one place I’ve been where I felt like I was coming home was in Tanzania, Africa. I was in the Angora crater, nearby where Lucy was found, the ancient skeleton. You’re walking on, what I thought were rocks, and it turns out they’re millions and millions of years old bones of every kind of creature, and it’s hard to explain. It was so quiet, the sky was huge, and you feel like you’re in the center of the world.

What is one pastry/dessert that one must serve at a tea party, like the ones you host?

There are two. There’s the shortbread, which is a recipe from a good friend of mine with whom I used to work. The other pastry you must have for tea are scones. I find the recipes and, my resident baker, who’s also my husband, not the reason I married him, but [we’re both] beginning to wonder… We make scones that are white chocolate, pecan or walnut, and apricot. They’re a huge hit.

I present to you, the Alice in Wonderland tea party

What are your hobbies?

My work is part of my life. I don’t segregate it much, but I am a musician – a pianist. Until a few years ago, I had a music studio. I usually only taught children because they don’t have preconceived ideas of what they have to sound like. I taught mostly improv to these little kids and they were amazing. I don’t think I have any hobbies…I love to travel, I love music, um, I enjoy cooking when it’s a family thing. I love my dogs, but they’re not a hobby, they own me, I am theirs. My son just got a wonderful dog! I know people are supposed to be this way about grandchildren, but we don’t have grandchildren. We have two children who are still pursuing their degrees or professions and that’s fine by me.

Bear, the lucky dog that receives all of Ms. Wemhoener’s love

This is Bear, he is so cute! I can’t stand it! I miss him so much, so when I work at home on Fridays, I ask my son to bring him up. Now, my own dogs are named Boo and Scout from “To Kill a Mockingbird.” It’s really their home, we live there and Bear is about one, (looks back at the picture) isn’t he precious? Isn’t he just too much? I just adore him. Bear’s not at all a hobby, he’s just a new love. He entered our lives, maybe about just a month ago and I am head over heels for Bear. Let me see if I can find more pictures! (We continued to look at pictures of Bear, forgetting the real purpose of our meeting).

The color of her coat, the golden brooch, the elegant gesture…how can you not be in love with her by now?

How can students become best friends with you?

(Laughs) I don’t think there’s any one way. There’s no secret, I have such a diversity. I really take pleasure in authentic people, and it’s, really, for me, very much fun to meet them. I think that’s part of what I love about teaching. I love what I teach, but I really love being engaged with a community of learners. Even though I’m not a college student, when you teach college students, I think if you do it well and you enjoy it, then you’re a student too, so you learn as much. Every class teaches me more than I think I taught the class. Ways to meet me is to be in class, that’s a really good start.

Sent me off to my next class with a cup full of cookies, I cry #bestfriendgoals

What or whom do you aspire to become?

I kind of would like to stay myself, not because I’m my own hero, but I have gotten used to me, so I don’t want to have to become somebody else. I think what I would always want to do [is] leave a better world than I entered. That doesn’t mean like Gilderoy Lockhart, from the Chamber of Secrets in Harry Potter. He’s just a crazy guy who wants to create world peace and have his own independent hair care line, and he’s bizarre, it’s not that! What you want to do no matter what, [whether] you are a student, teacher, a farmer or someone who is reflecting a role in the world, [is] make a difference, and you want the difference to be good. As a teacher, not just in a classroom or in a university, I want things to be better in a genuine way for the people I encounter. That could be here, but it could also be in Myanmar. It could also be someone I’ve only met once, a Buddhist monk I met on the top of a mountain. You want to go through each day, not with grandiose ideas, but each day saying, ‘what can I do here?’ To me, that’s enough. I don’t want to climb mountains, I’m not going to write symphonies, and I’m never going to be a ballerina. There are all sorts of things that I admire, that I want to support, but I would like to, just simply, make it better.

Do you have any advice for your “fan club”?

I think it would be not to let some of your choices restrict you, but to go with what you love as well as what you need. Make your own choices [and] have good friends, listen to what they tell you. You don’t have to follow them, but listen as well as you can and have fun. I think if you’re having fun and also caring about the community in which you’re having fun, you’re going to be fine and work will feel good, it will. Also, don’t limit yourself by rules that are artificial and especially at a university. Don’t define yourself by a major, just cross all over the place. Just because you’re an engineer doesn’t mean you can’t take creative dance. Just because you’re a dancer doesn’t mean you can’t take high-level math. I fear that too many of us are putting restrictions on that and I’d like that not to happen. Have adventures! I think adventures like going to Africa, but you can have an adventure by going to West Virginia to a mining town, that’s quite an adventure.