English At 50 | University of Waterloo

After seven years of working, Mr. Jack Nahrgang (BA 1987) chose to attend UW because it had a Mature Students facility. In addition, he was attracted to the variety of courses offered both on the main campus and at the University Colleges. Ultimately, he wanted to become a teacher and he chose to study English as part of his plan to reach that goal.

The English Reading Room was a place that Jack loved to go to when he needed time to read. He found that many of his professors, including Gordon Slethaug, Ted McGee, Bob Gosselink, Rota Lister, and John North all modeled a love of literature and writing that made his studies more enjoyable. “Today, in visiting the campus, I lament that current UW English students really have no truly silent place to dive into literature, unless there is a new novel entitled Twitter.”

Jack found the English 109 course with Ken Ledbetter outstanding: “He not only taught great content on writing but held the audience with his zany analogies, like insisting we capture our reader's attention and then illustrating his point by pulling a meat cleaver and a kitten out of a box. No one in the audience spoke-- we were all riveted to the stage. We got the point (and the kitten lived!).”

After graduating, Jack attended the University of Western Ontaio's Althouse Faculty of Education, where he earned his BEd.

Since then, he has been an English and history teacher with the Waterloo Region District School Board.

Being a student at UW helped Jack to hone his writing skills. Today, some of his accomplishments include receiving the 2003 Finlay Stewart Award for Excellence in Teaching, placing second in the 2006 Telling Our Stories writing competition, and serving on the KW Record's Community Editorial Board. “None of these accomplishments would have been possible without the solid base provided by UW English.”