CARL LAM
Senior Staff Writer
In a short follow-up email after the interview, Vincent Quatroche suggested the tagline of, “I’m just an adjunct.” Sure, it works. But as one of the longest serving adjunct professors in the Department of Communication, he’s earned a far better tagline than what he suggested.
Quatroche has been with the department since the late ‘80s and got the call from his former colleagues about picking up a course. During his time here, he’s taught nearly every foundational course the department offers.
“I was contacted by Dan Berggren and John Malcolm, who was chair at the time, and he asked if I wanted to teach an audio production class. That’s the way I got my foot in the door and that just continued,” he said.
He earned a bachelor’s and a teaching degree along with a master’s degree and permanent certification to teach English from grades 7 through 12. However, his teaching path took him almost everywhere except the high school classroom and to places that many people hope to stay out of.
“The Chautauqua County Jail is a place that has a two-year maximum stay and in some cases, you have it as a holding situation for individuals who were going to be transferred upstate,” Quatroche said. “In other cases, you have a lot of garden-variety transgressors from the area, who ran a foul by making some pretty poor decisions.”
Quatroche served as a teacher for an alternative education program within the jail for 17 years. His primary goal was to help inmates earn their GED while they were staying in the prison.
“I got a real education in the correctional system and the individuals that were in there,” Quatroche said. “I did learn that you treat everyone with respect in there and I never asked them
anything personal.”
Years after his career at the jail, it isn’t uncommon for Quatroche to see some of his former “students.”
“I see people in the community now who have turned their life around in one way and it makes your day to have somebody come up and go, ‘hey, you weren’t a bad guy when I was in there,’ and it was a real interesting experience,” he said. “I didn’t get anyone their GED — they got
it for themselves. They were tested at the jail and I would help them prepare for the test.”
While a lot of Quatroche’s career is focused on teaching, he still finds time for poetry readings — about a half dozen per year. This month, he will make trips down to the New York City and the Long Island area for two events. At his event in Huntington, NY, he’ll be reading with Suffolk County poet laureate, George Wallace.
“It’s a lot of fun because the demographic is people who have done this their entire life and it leaves most academics cold. It’s fun to be a part of the culture down there,” he said.
In addition to poetry, Quatroche is a published author of seven books and he’s currently working on an eighth. He also worked on audio projects with professor emeritus Berggren that have been released all across the country. Quatroche’s long lasting passion for the arts goes back to his days growing up on Long Island.
“I was always interested in the arts and I got that from my father. As time went on, I wanted to travel and learn as much as I could,” he said. “By the time I was 30, when I started to settle down I said, ‘whoa, Vince, buddy, you need a job,’ and I did have a teaching degree, so I started to apply that.”
Quatroche also teaches at the northern campus of Jamestown Community College and hasbeen for nearly two decades. However, he loves teaching at Fredonia and enjoys being in a profession he feels is important and satisfying.
“Whether the perception is that I’m a tough teacher or that I demand certain things — I realize that perception. But it’s not because of any disrespect or not admiring the young people that come to school, it’s having the knowledge about how difficult it is in the job market,” Quatroche
said. “There are certain key competencies that you have to have because you’re not going to last. They’re very basic things: coming to class, coming to class on time, not being distracted, getting your work in on time and being engaged.”
Junior audio production major Meghan Devine experienced Quatroche’s class last semester and says that being in class helped her overall as a student.
“His teaching style is unorthodox, in a positive view, because it gives people the opportunity to be creative and have different outlets that aren’t available in other standard classes,” she said. “He inspired and bettered me as a student without even realizing.”
Devine feels that the college needs more professors like Quatroche, who are giving assignments that help students understand the real world.
“He comes across as intimidating but I think the entire point of him coming across that way is to help you formulate your own opinions, better your work ethic and strive for success,” Devine said. “I feel like some teachers are here because of a job but I think that Vince is here because he cares for the future of our society and for our field as a whole. He gives us the tools necessary to make our own decisions and interpretations about the world — that’s more than you could ever get from a textbook.”
Junior journalism major Courtnee Cesta has high praise for Quatroche, someone she learned so much from.
“He was one of the most inspiring professors I’ve had so far at Fredonia because he encouraged us to think and motivated us to go beyond the simple explanations for things,” Cesta said. “Although he required a lot of work, there was something about him that made me want to make him proud. We need more professors like him — mentors that don’t just hold your hand and guide you through things but set you free and force you to figure things out on your own.”
Kay McDonough, chair for the Department of Communication, appreciates the richness of knowledge Quatroche brings to every class he teaches.
“He’s absolutely fabulous and his dedication to his students is over 100 percent. He’s got this wealth of knowledge and he knows almost everything there is to know about film history. He’ll quote from a movie and it will take me a couple of beats to identify what movie that quote came from — it’s just instantaneous and he’s got the perfect quotes,” McDonough said.
For Quatroche, seeing students grow over time is one of the best perks of the job.
“The best part is getting the chance to, in a very limited window of time, see emerging young people making discoveries about themselves and the world very quickly and intensely,” Quatroche said. “Being with them and seeing them come in right out of high school one way and then four years later seeing the marvelous progress of what they’ve learned makes your day.”