A Professor’s Transition from University to Community College

Tony Vinci – a new professor at SUNY Niagara – started at SUNY Niagara less than a month ago and continues to re-adjust towards life in Western New York. 

by Kylie Franklin

Dr. Tony Vinci, originally from Rochester NY, returned to the area so he could be closer to family and pursue his joy of teaching. Tony has been teaching for several decades, and over the years he has found a deep understanding of what it means to be a teacher. “Teaching to me is feeling lost, jumping in the dark with other people, trying to experience the dark with other people, and then using everything you have to help them use everything they have to either get out of the dark, have fun in the dark, build a house in the dark.” says Vinci. 

Growing up in a less than literate environment, Tony had no interest in going to college or reading, and accidentally fell into the world of teaching. “I think I mentioned earlier I didn’t read a book till I was 18 and we didn’t have books growing up and I barely went to high school. I watched horror movies. Lots of horror movies, and if you know anything from horror movies from the 80s, they’re working class philosophy. They’re how everyday people tend to make meaning of life. I had no interest in going to college whatsoever, I never took the SATs or ACTs. Nothing. My sister forced me to go to college instead of touring with my bands. I didn’t know what college was, I got into classes the Friday before classes started” Vinci says “I was taking every English major there was to offer. Creative writing, teaching, pre law, literature, and they had problems with the football team. They kept failing English 101, and they looked at me and it ended up by the time I left the office I was teaching a class. I barely know how to write myself. I was 21 years old, and these people that I thought were the most brilliant, amazing humans who ever lived asked me to do something for them and I tried. And that’s how I started teaching. And that’s kinda been the way it worked for me since then. It was just nuts and it was such a sense of terror and dread, but responsibility. And I think that’s the biggest thing most teachers feel is an insane sense of responsibility that cripples us sometimes.” 

Vinci has said he enjoys teaching, connecting with students, and having meaningful conversations with staff. “In the English department, I feel like if I took a picture of us just the most extraordinarily interesting, strange group of cartoon characters, and I mean that as a compliment. You know everyone’s identity almost instantly, I feel. It makes me feel safe, proud, curious. I love going to my colleagues’ offices and asking what they’re teaching or what’s going on.” Further on he tells us about changes in his classroom “I’m definitely a little more cartoony, a little more over the top because I feel unshackled. I feel like I have licenses to be weirder and to try to because I think my student bodies are more diverse in terms of thought, feeling, and background, and I need to try to create a world in which any student in class can find some corner to inhabit for a little bit.”

When in the middle of asking Vinci what changes there have been in his day to day life he answered with “ Huge. I love being at work. I love coming to the office. I love walking around talking to strangers in the hallways. I love seeing my students, there’s not a time I’m in this office where I don’t see a student. Meeting colleagues and meeting people who are deserving of such curiosity is the best. My colleagues in the universities would never believe me if I told them how many students are in my office every single day. It’s been beautiful.” Shortly after giving this answer, two students would come in just to quickly chat with Dr. Vinci before his next class. 

Vinci has vocalized how the new school has affected him not only as a teacher but also as a person, allowing him to feel free in the classroom and converse with student life routinely. “It’s nice not to feel so anxious at work. I’m anxious about the amount of work and my responsibilities, but not a weird existential anxiousness of “what am I doing with my life?” So that’s a gigantic shift.” Having Vinci as one of SUNY Niagara’s newest professors was beneficial not only to the school and students but also to Tony as well. Pushing for his students to grow more curious and ask questions is something that Vinci grows in his classrooms, making it a suitable environment for any student. “I want to invite normal everyday humans to feel a little deeper, to have the opportunity to trust themselves a little bit more, to find their language a little bit more, to understand the value and intensity of a certain story, to broaden other worlds in whatever way that makes sense to them.”