Gillian Eileen Pasley

Gillian Eileen Pasley

Bachelor of Arts

Creative Writing

Sociology, High Honors

My name is Gillian Pasley! I grew up in Concord, MA, and am very sad to now be graduating and leaving Oberlin College. I majored in Sociology and Creative Writing, and developed passions for poetry, nonfiction writing, teaching, and education reform. I completed an honors thesis in sociology investigating normative whiteness in social justice-oriented teacher training programs, and am finishing up a capstone that experiments with transitional prose forms to explore fatherhood, death, and aftershocks. Outside of the classroom, I served as station manager this past year at WOBC, and was a DJ and/or staff member at the radio station for all four years at Oberlin. Ive also enjoyed making my dreams come true as a concert booker for the Sco since 2017. Additionally: been an unreliable tasty things maker in Harkness; a visiting poet at Langston Middle School; a singer for illusive campus band "The Milos"; a sporadic employee of the admissions office; loyal customer of Feve, Blue Rooster, etc. I will miss my lovely friends and this community so much!

Galway, Ireland during the spring of 2019.

Student Union staff

Office of Admissions

America Reads

WOBC! I was station manager this year, on staff for two years prior, and have been a DJ for four. The basis of some of my best memories with community (cover band showcase, times with friends in the studio), but also the site of much self-discovery and growing passion for community-minded media.

Teaching Imaginative Writing with poetry professor Lynn Powell!! Lynn is such an inspiring professor, and completing my first poetry residency at Langston Middle School ignited a passion for teaching.

Gear Co-op

Oberlin Student Cooperative Association

Student Union Programming Committee

Wilder Voice Magazine

WOBC: Oberlin College & Community Radio

Writers in Residence

As a booker for the 'Sco, I got to book my favorite musician of all time (Jonathan Richman, of the Modern Lovers) for a show in fall 2017. They say never to meet you heroes, but it actually worked out--this artist who I'd listened to and was inspired by all throughout high school was lovely to talk to, as weird as his music would suggest, and put on a phenomenal show. After the 'Sco was all cleaned up, I prepared to say goodbye -- when he realized he had parked his van across a driveway on Woodland Street and it had been towed during the evening. If you had told 15-year-old me that I'd be driving my hero to a junkyard in Elyria in my beat-up Toyota Camry, I never would have believed you. When I got back to Wilder, he gave me a hug and got into the van--"the adventure continues!!" he called, and drove off into the night.

05/25/2020

As of right now, undecided. I am hoping to work in education, public media, non-profit development, journalism, or some combination of all of those...