The dog reached me first. Before professor Andre Wakefield even stepped onto the Grove House porch, his corgi, Heidi, was already trotting over, nudging my bag like she was checking me in for the interview.
It was an unintentionally perfect introduction. I immediately felt like it was going to be more than just a typical Q&A. Eventually, Heidi drifted back to his side, settling at his feet as he eased into his chair and began tracing the winding path that brought him here.
Pitzer College Professor of History Andre Wakefield said he always knew he wanted to teach, though it took longer to understand that being a professor was a very different calling. He got an M.A. in public policy before starting over again on a history Ph.D. Though he enjoyed working in environmental consulting in Washington, D.C., he was always drawn to the deeper structural and historical issues that drove day-to-day policymaking.
His path wasn’t glamorous. There was landscaping, roofing, even a bleak stint in telemarketing — which he joked was the lowest point — but it all eventually led him to the intellectual home he felt he had been circling all along.
His winding road to becoming a professor at Pitzer reflected his broader approach to learning. “Students often think the way disciplines are divided is natural — anthro[pology] does people across oceans, econ[omics] deals with money,” Wakefield said. “But none of that is natural. It didn’t have to be this way.”
Watching him talk, I couldn’t help but see the parallel — the same curiosity that sent his dog bounding toward a stranger seemed to have guided him through his own journey, and I found myself wondering if we all carry a bit of that curiosity too, just in different ways.
I have to admit: Hearing him call the division of disciplines artificial made me feel less pressured about my own zigzagging path. It was comforting to know that curiosity and persistence could matter more than a straight line. Wakefield wants students thinking outside the box, spotting connections between disciplines and realizing how ideas overlap.
Personally, I never thought I’d be able to link science and literature. Still, there I was, a former STEM major turned English major book nerd, seeing that the logic and patterns I loved in science actually had a lot in common with storytelling and structure in literature. Wakefield made that kind of thinking feel completely natural.
That fluid mindset resonated with me. I have often felt boxed in by rigid categories in school, and hearing someone embrace the freedom to cross boundaries felt validating. It was this kind of thinking that drew him to academia: the chance to question assumptions, explore connections across fields and follow curiosity wherever it led.
This semester, that curiosity is steering his class “Propaganda.” Rather than beginning with typical images of war posters or political messaging, he started by challenging students’ assumptions, emphasizing that propaganda works precisely because it doesn’t look obvious. The readings could get dense at times — specifically when Wakefield introduced French and English theorists — but he balanced the heaviness with fun and open discussion.
His own research explores the intersection of technology and history, showing how inventions had shaped societies in ways we might not immediately notice. By connecting seemingly separate worlds, he encourages students to follow curiosity wherever it leads and discover links they never imagined. It’s a reminder that our own interdisciplinary interests aren’t just hobbies, but valid ways of thinking.
“One thing I really appreciated about being at Pitzer was that if you were excited about something and you could imagine it, you could teach it,” Wakefield said. That philosophy inspired him to help create a class called “The History and Political Economy of World Soccer.” Because of that class, David Goldblatt, a world-class authority on the subject, now teaches the class — and he’s here this spring, before the World Cup, to teach it again!
I learned as he teased me for wearing Adidas Sambas off the field that Wakefield is an avid soccer player himself. “As long as my knees hold up, I’ll keep playing the game,” Wakefield said, which had me thinking about how following your passions in any field could have that same enduring energy as playing soccer. For Wakefield, following your passions is just as simple as kicking a ball around: you need to keep showing up, pushing forward and finding new angles to love.
Even from behind the scenes, he takes pride in seeing students tackle this unexpected intersection of interests, proving that curiosity and imagination could turn unconventional ideas into real opportunities. I couldn’t help but smile imagining the kinds of connections students made in that class, linking something as familiar as soccer to economics in ways I never would have considered.
The best part of teaching, Wakefield said, was learning from his students. He laughed about how he often felt like “an alien coming down to learn about Fizz,” a social media app many students used to track trends and share ideas. In class, they brought these online conversations into discussions, turning pop culture and digital trends into lessons that sparked new ways of thinking.
His advice to students is straightforward. “The biggest advice would be — fucking pay attention,” Wakefield said. “To your friends, to your classes, to your dog. Just settle down and pay attention.”
We all know how easy it is to scroll past the small moments, and hearing him put it so plainly made me reconsider where my attention went each day. For Wakefield, noticing the little things and being attentive was a skill worth practicing, even when life felt more complicated than it had in his youth.
At the heart of Wakefield’s teaching is curiosity — his own and his students’. Whether he was exploring history, propaganda or even the economics of soccer, he encouraged noticing the world, asking questions and making connections across disciplines. For me, sitting in his class or even just talking with him reinforces that learning wasn’t just about lectures or textbooks; it was about paying attention, staying curious and letting the unexpected spark new ideas in ways that could completely change how you saw the world.
“Many Pitzer students seem to regard history as dull and determined,” Wakefield said. “In a world where everyone is increasingly trapped in their own algorithms, whether they realize it or not, it’s important to have an escape hatch. That’s what history can be.”
Siena Giacoma PZ ’27 survives on endless cycles of caffeine, half-written drafts and lofty promises to “finish that book tomorrow.” Her cat, Olive, remains skeptical, offering judgmental stares in place of encouragement.
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