The next instructor to be featured in a series highlighting the new faculty members at SWOSU is Angela Fleming, a kinesiology and yoga instructor.
Fleming grew up just down the road from SWOSU in Clinton, and she was involved with health and wellness at a young age. “I spent most of my life with my parents being athletes, spending so much time in the gym with gymnastics, ballet, different athletic programs. So it’s always been a part of my life — yoga, wellness, fitness,” Fleming said. She also credited the fact her three children were heavily involved with athletics throughout school.
“It just kind of came natural when I decided to get my RYT200 yoga certification later in life,” Fleming said.
Yoga opened the door for Fleming to begin teaching at SWOSU as an adjunct, and it led to more opportunities with the university.
“That is how I began here. It was my introduction anything at Southwestern. I decided to go back to school and I started teaching Consumer Health and some courses like that,” she said. Having recently completed her master’s degree, Fleming now is teaching a variety of kinesiology, consumer health, and yoga classes.
The support Fleming said she has received as a SWOSU faculty member from the community has been “amazing.” She said, “When I started here I was staff, but I was treated the same as a fulltime faculty member.
It’s just a lot of fun. It is very motivating. I can’t imagine not having the opportunity to experience Southwestern.” Fleming added she agrees with the statement, “There is no support like bulldog support.”
Some of her classes are active, like yoga, but other courses are lecture and project oriented.
While the structure of the classes varies, Fleming said she loves both, and the feedback she gets from students keeps her motivated.
“I look out in my classroom and I see all of these great, amazing humans, and I go, ‘I could learn so much more from these kids than I could ever teach them,’” she said. “We’ll do projects in my lecture courses and their feedback and how what I’m teaching affects their lives makes me think, ‘Oh my goodness, I love this more than anything.’
And then I’ll go teach my yoga courses, and that is my heart and soul. Then I’ll get amazing feedback from those yoga courses and how it impacts their life and I say, ‘this is my favorite thing.’” Not only does Fleming appreciate practicing yoga, but she has received feedback from several students who have changed for the better because of her classes. “They say how much it has helped them with their self-esteem, anxiety, depression and things of that nature.
They’re learning how with the breathing and some of the things I teach them and talk to them in class they just feel better. They don’t have as much anxiety; they’re depression lifts, which is all scientifically based.
There’s a reason we do everything we do,” she said.
In all of her health and wellness classes, Fleming hopes her students will learn the value of consistency during difficult seasons.
“This too shall pass,” she said. “Showing up, being present, putting in the effort, getting involved — it’s all worth it. I want them to walk up with their head held high and knowing they can do it, whatever that thing may be.”
Faculty fast facts
Go to coffee order: A cup of black coffee. “The stronger the better.”
Favorite television show: “I like British suspense shows when I watch them. I don’t really have a lot of time, so I don’t really watch television shows.”
Dream vacation: Ireland Best Christmas gift you received as a child: “We got a dog name Taco. He was a rescue dog and we took him in.”
Favorite meal: A wellcooked salmon on a bed of greens.
A book you could read again and again: “The Help” A day that’s not a holiday but should be: National Starburst Day
New SWOSU instructor Angela Fleming shares about the wellness classes she teaches.