62: Carla Morris

My guest this week is Carla Morris who is International Pathways Manager in the Centre for English & World Languages at the University of Kent where she has been for the last 10 years, and we begin by talking about an embarrassing meeting we once had as Senior Tutors for our respective Schools. Carla grew up in Dublin in the 1960s and went to a Methodist school which was her first multicultural experience and later went on to study History of art and Medieval History at Trinity College Dublin. She ended up bookselling for the next few years, and we find out about the ‘curious journey’ she then went on, which included working for an American independent financier and wanting to travel the world, which is how she met her husband, and later teaching refugees and asylum seekers and Business English. We learn why travelling back in time has always been Carla’s passion and we find out that as a child Carla played imaginative games in her garden. Carla has always wanted to help make a difference to people’s lives and getting students to do what really interests them (rather than what, say, their parents think). We discover that Carla has an abiding love of 1950s and 60s music and she talks about her father’s involvement in Irish politics, the way politics is practised and perceived, and Tony Blair’s rationale for going to war in Iraq. She talks about growing up in a country dominated by the Roman Catholic Church, and how going to Methodist school was quite a controversial choice. She talks about how well she integrated despite being one of only two Catholics in her school and we discuss how the question ‘Do you believe in God?’ never came up. Carla discusses the importance of having something in your life to anchor you, as well as about the role of faith and theism. Carla discloses how her father’s death when she was 8 years old upended her life though her school years were positive, and she has a qualified answer to the question as to whether it is possible to be nostalgic about negative experiences. She talks about the nostalgia she gets from going to Mass on a Sunday and about the need for structure and keeping busy. Towards the end of the interview we find out whether Carla has fulfilled the dreams she had when she was young (when she wanted to be a ballerina and a vet) and we learn that she still has the yearning to go back and feed the love of postgraduate study. She talks about the prospect of going to her 40th anniversary school reunion and we learn why she has become more of a forward looking person in recent times. Please note: Opinions expressed are solely those of Chris Deacy and Carla Morris and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the University of Kent.