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Dawn Rae Davis has a secret. She is in her first year as an assistant professor of gender and women's studies at Minnesota State, but she wasn't always a professor.
Though she grew up in Minnesota and Iowa, she has lived in many major U.S. cities, from Boston to Los Angeles, because of her rather surprising former career: acting.
Davis said she was bit by the acting bug in high school. As she got older, she traveled around the U.S., acting mostly on stage.
"It was a very typical actress's career where you make a few commercials, do a little bit of guest spots on TV shows, maybe get a film role here or there, do some plays and scrap through with a living," Davis said.
She acted for quite a few years, but the career was very absorbing and she had to put everything she had into finding work. She found jobs mostly in the food industry, but the constant job searching kept her tired and living near the poverty line at times.
Finally she decided it was time for a change. She had always been envious of people with degrees and, at a time where she wasn't sure what she wanted to do, she thought college would be a productive way to spend her time.
"I was very intimidated to go back to school," Davis said. "I really didn't think that I was smart enough. I didn't think I would be successful. In fact I didn't even think I would get in when I applied."
She started studying American studies, but quickly fell in love with gender and women's studies as well.
"Once I had tried my first one [women's studies course], I found it absolutely compelling. It explained so much as far as my experiences and experiences of women I grew up with. It helped me understand my world," Davis said.
As a nontraditional student, her college experience had different peaks than the average person. Sometimes when a class would discuss something historical she would notice the different barriers college could break.
"It was always this cool thing where I realized that they [students] had forgotten that I wasn't their peer in terms of age but that I was a student like they were," Davis said.
But she never thought she would become a professor of women's studies.
The idea of becoming a professor got stuck in her head after a professor gave her some mail from the women's studies office that had incorrectly addressed her title.
"She gave me this piece of mail and she kind of said, 'Hm, that looks pretty good doesn't it, Professor Davis,'" she said.
Achieving an education is a very exciting accomplishment in her life.
She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in American studies and women's studies from the University of California Santa Cruz, then she did her graduate work at the University of Minnesota. After receiving her her doctorate she taught for three years at the University of Iowa.
Maria Bevacqua, gender and women's studies department chair, said Davis is an extremely intelligent person who is able to communicate her thoughts well to both students and colleagues.
"It's great for our students to have her level of experience in the classroom," Bevacqua said.
Davis enjoys many aspects of teaching at MSU, but for now she just has a one year contract.
She wants students to learn how gender issues relate to their own lives and then grow from that because gender is such a huge aspect in our society.
Janna Wedel, Davis's teaching intern and a gender and women's studies graduate student, said Davis is very enthusiastic about her work, and wants to help her students grow from the points where they are individually.
"She challenges her students to put very complex ideas into a broader framework of understanding," Wedel said. While her classes can be difficult, Wedel said the experiences gained from them will be very beneficial because students will have an in-depth understanding of the course material.
Currently Davis is writing a book titled "Decolonizing Love" that thinks about love as a public ethics. She is a feminist philosopher who believes in using love to talk about social change and social justice. It upsets her that love has been so overly sentimentalized because it has such value as a public good.
Elena Shufelt is a Reporter staff writer
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