Cohan and current grad student, Fatai Olabemiwo, search for microbes that degrade plastic in the Portland, Connecticut dump. c/o Matt Layman
Welcome to “Office Hours,” a series brought to you by the Features section! In these articles, Argus writers speak to faculty, staff, and members of the administration about their interests, classes, and lives on- and off-campus.
When Biology and College of the Environment Professor Fred Cohan told me he liked to drive in New York City, I thought he was kidding. Between the gridlock, blaring horns, and swerving taxicabs, I couldn’t imagine how a ride through Manhattan could be pleasant. After Cohan explained his logic to me, though, I found myself wanting to take a joyride down Broadway.
“You see, it’s like letting inertia be your friend,” Cohan said. “When you look at it from above, and you just see what people are doing, you connect with everything people are doing and kind of see it as a flow thing. You just do what you have to do and flow into it. I always look forward to another drive into the city.”
Whether Cohan is cruising through Times Square or guiding the Wesleyan community through the grips of COVID-19, he always approaches situations with a positive and a big-picture perspective. You might know him from taking his iconic class, “Global Change and Infectious Disease,” like I did, or maybe you’ve seen him manning first base in an intramural faculty baseball game on Andrus Field. You might have read Cohan’s LA Times Op-Ed about what baseball legend Sandy Koufax’s perfect game teaches us about data collection in Biology, or watched his videos about COVID-19 safety on the Wesleyan COVID Moodle courses.
For the inaugural issue of “Office Hours,” I caught up with Cohan to learn about his career, motivations, and life outside of the classroom.
The Argus: How long have you been teaching at Wes?
Fred Cohan: I started in the Fall of ’86, so this is my 36th year. If you think about it in terms of my 72nd semester, then it starts sounding really impressive.
A: When did you start teaching “Global Change and Infectious Disease”?
FC: I wish I could tell you. In fact, I wish I could even tell you how many times I’ve taught it. I think it’s something like seven or eight times. And it’s always been big…. I have just felt that it’s important for everybody who wants to take it to get to take it.
A: Where is your favorite place that you’ve lived?
FC: The funny thing is, my wife and I—she’s from West Hartford, Connecticut—and it turns out, that the two of us, starting in two different places have each lived in the same four states, being California, Arizona, Connecticut, and Massachusetts…. Each of these places has something that I really love, but I will just say that Connecticut, the more I get to know it, it becomes more of a sweet spot in the world. It’s like a dream: yes, the world is warming and yes, Connecticut is warming, but wouldn’t you know it? The part that’s warming is the winter, and the summer has stayed almost the same.
A: If you were an Olympian, what sport would you play?
FC: I would go back a few years ago to win baseball—it was a new Olympic sport and it was dropped—but I love baseball.
A: What movies have you seen recently?
FC: “The Power of the Dog.”
A: I just watched “The Power of the Dog”!
FC: It’s a great bacteria movie, wouldn’t you say?
A: It is a really good bacteria movie, I didn’t even think of it like that!
A: What is your Zodiac sign?
FC: I can tell you, but I don’t do that. I’m a Gemini. I just don’t connect with it. But, my wife and I are both in the middle of Gemini [season], and people have [thought] a lot about that, but, eh. We just enjoy that people think it’s amusing and it means that we have a consolidated birthday weekend every year.
A: Favorite hobby?
FC: In honor of this interview, this morning I kind of rehabilitated my [daphnia] tank…and I’m going to go collect some daphnia. [Daphnia are small water fleas.]
Cohan has researched the origin of species throughout his professional career. In grad school, Cohan studied Drosophila fruit flies (pictured), and has also studied bacteria and viruses throughout his years in biological research. Cohen now heads a lab at Wesleyan that studies the origins of bacterial species. c/o Jerry Coyne
A: What drives you to keep teaching?
FC: The answer to that right now is pretty easy, I think. We’re living in a time when there are two environmental crises, one being global warming and the other being recurrent pandemics…. I want people to understand that there are things that everybody can do to try to avoid these crises…. I feel that my course instills hope in people, and I don’t mean optimism. Optimism is something I was born with—I got it from my grandma Ida. I just see things as I see them; I can’t help it. But hope is a little different. What it means is that you can draw on activities that you’re doing and other people are doing that can bring success in beating a problem, and knowing that what we’re doing is going to be beneficial. And that is a hope. Beyond that, there is a faith, and my faith is that what we do constructively will make a difference. This makes me go.
A: I definitely felt more hope when I took your course. Just learning about this topic helped me see the ways out of the pandemic.
FC: I only [just] discovered that students were taking hope away from my course—I think the time that you took it (Fall 2020). I had no idea that people came away more hopeful about the world and since I realized that I’ve tried to ramp up that part of my presentations. I would hope (haha) that all of our courses can help instill hope in our students…and maybe you can see things that we can do to possibly make things better.
Halle Newman can be reached at hnewman@wesleyan.edu. If you have any suggestions on whose “Office Hours” she should go to next, send her an email!