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The Right Place at the Right Time

by Abigail Miller

After teaching and serving Blackburn College for a total of 19 years, we are sad to say that Dr. David Reid is retiring when the spring semester ends. Dr. Reid said that he completed 16 years of higher education to be where he is today. Five of these were towards undergraduate degrees in zoology and medical laboratory science, four for his master’s’ degree (part time) and seven for his doctorate.

Dr. Reid did not originally want to be a teacher. He said he wanted to be a medical laboratory scientist. He only found out that he wanted to be a teacher after teaching undergraduates when he was completing his master’s degree. Before he pursued teaching, Dr. Reid said, “A crossroad in my life came when I was offered to become lab manager, which would have been a nice promotion, or I needed to make a decision if I wanted to get a doctorate.” It might not come as a shock, but Dr. Reid chose the latter and got a Ph.D. in biochemistry.

At the time he only had enough education to be an instructor, but he wanted to do more than that. Two years after he graduated and was an assistant professor, a position at Blackburn opened up and he has been teaching us ever since.

Dr. Reid said that getting a job at Blackburn “was coming home” for him because he actually grew up in Carlinville. When asked what he is most proud of during his time at Blackburn, he said, “The thing I am most proud of is the way the biology department and the sciences have grown since I have been here.” He doesn’t take credit for all of it, but he is very proud to have played a small part in it. Dr. Reid has spent the last 11 years in leadership roles in the the Division of Natural Sciences. When asked what he would do differently if he could do it all over again, he answers, “Probably nothing. I’ve been very lucky, blindly making decisions and they’ve turned out very well… I was at the right place at the right time for both my master’s and my Ph..D.” He is not sure what the future holds with his retirement, but maybe he’ll “be at the right place at the right time” a few more times. Only a handful of colleges have had Dr. Reid teach their students, but Blackburn students will miss him the most. Good luck Dr. Reid.

 

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