My nickname in sixth grade was “professor”. Out of the mouths of babes...
I always knew I would go into teaching; I decided that in Kindergarten. And I knew it would be at a Christian college. I also happened to be a big fan of New York City—regularly visiting friends who lived here. The art, theater, and all around excitement energized me. I loved visiting the city but always went back home after a 7-10 day stay. I never imagined actually living there. I assumed I would probably end up on a lovely, bucolic, Christian college campus somewhere in the middle of the US inside a protected, insular bubble. Or so I thought. A year or so after finishing grad school, my best friend (that would be Doc) got a job at The King’s College in Manhattan—New York City, not Kansas! How did that happen? And just exactly what was this Christian college doing in NYC? And why wasn’t I teaching there? But God knew the desires of my heart and He gave them to me.
Fast forward to the summer of 2004, when, along with the Providence of God, I loaded up all of my personal belongings into a U-Haul, which included boxes of books, a couple of lamps, and a cat, and drove up from the Florida panhandle to mid-town Manhattan. That fall I began my career as a fulltime Christian college professor at The King’s College in the greatest city in the world. I was initially hired to teach American History. A year later, I was teaching Western Civilization. Five years or so after that, I helped create and launch the new Media, Culture, and the Arts program. I’ve been able to create a Museum Studies minor/concentration as well as summer study program to Europe that included stays in Paris, Rome, Florence, Berlin, and Vienna. None of these efforts would have been worth it were it not for the extraordinary students who sat in my classrooms in NYC and abroad. I still ask God from time to time: what did I do to deserve this? My DNA is all over this college and the college’s DNA is all over me.
I could not have dreamed up a better fit for the calling of my life and a career trajectory. I tell visiting students and parents that this is my dream job. It’s true. If Harvard, Yale, or Princeton reached out to offer me a job, I would turn it down. The mission of the college, along with my faculty and staff colleagues, the students, and the alumni have created and shaped a dynamic that can’t be found at any other Christian college. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
Henry Bleattler, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of History and the Humanities
(former) Chair of the Program in Media, Culture, and the Arts
Henry Bleattler, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of History and Humanities | The King's College | Serving Since 2004
You Can Invest in a Story Like This.
