Mike Larkin, MA

• Cultural Geography

• MA, University of Colorado - Boulder

What do you value and care about outside of your professional duties?

I like traveling and being outside, I am an avid follower of College Lacrosse and professional cycling (watching, not doing), I enjoy learning about history and I am trying my hardest to learn Greek.

What encouraged you to go into (and stay in) Higher Education?

I am what the kids today call a “nepo baby”!  My father taught geography at UCCS starting in 1974, so I grew up in this department surrounded by the amazing professors across this amazing campus.  I decided to stay in higher education because it is the best job in the world.  I am constantly learning, surrounded by amazing colleagues and students.  I tell all my classes that, “if you love your job half as much as I love mine, and do twice as well at it, you will have an amazing life!”  And I believe that wholeheartedly.

What are your own professional goals and aspirations?

I am a Teaching Professor, so I do not have a “professional responsibility” to research or publish (which is great because I can’t write to save my life).  That said, I would like to learn to write, I want to keep pushing traditional approaches to teaching, and what it means to be a “learner” rather than a “student” or “customer”.  I want to do work on campus to help protect myself and my amazing colleagues from administrative decisions that are causing real damage to UCCS.  And I hope to keep my job doing that.

What is your favorite place?

I spent nine weeks in the fall of 2024 in Greece.  After that amazing experience I would say that Delphi is currently my favorite place. Delphi is one of those places you hear about all the time, and how amazing and mystical it is, and every word of it is true!  It is not only an amazing Physical, Historical and Cultural Geography, but you really get a sense of how it has managed to be that for thousands of years. I cannot wait to get back.