Carolyn Lee has been a teacher her entire professional life. She first taught at an inner-city high school in St. Louis, then at a Quaker boarding school outside of Philadelphia. After earning her Ph.D. at the University of Michigan, she taught at the University ofTexas at Austin and at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. Up with People offered her an opportunity to teach college-level courses to students who were traveling the world doing a musical show and building understanding among people of different cultures. She left academia in 1992 to teach communication studies in the corporate setting, specializing in presenting skills, nonverbal communication, and active listening. Whatever Carolyn’s assignment, her aim was to entertain as well as to teach, and she often did that by telling stories-with-a-point. In her book, Keep Your Eye on the Ball and Other Cliches to Live By, she explores well-worn—some might say hackneyed—old maxims, finding in them lessons that are useful and often amusing. Her book allows her to engage in the kind of storytelling that has characterized her entire career.
Let Us Tell You More About Carolyn Lee
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The organizing principle, the recurring motif running through the life of Carolyn Lee is storytelling. As a teacher, trainer, performer, facilitator, director and writer, she has used stories as a way of communicating information and ideas. Drama lies at the heart of her work, whether she is teaching presenting skills to the staff of an engineering firm, lecturing to a classroom full of Radio-TV-Film majors, running a weekend retreat for the management team at a country club, or acting as drama coach for a production of Hello, Dolly! Regardless of her particular assignment, Carolyn finds a way to teach the “soft skills” that enable people to live and work effectively together.
After graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Education Degree from Southeast Missouri State College, where she majored in art and English, Carolyn went on to Bowling Green State University in Ohio where she earned a master’s degree in Speech. Her emphasis there was in Radio-Television-and-Film. As part of her work for the M.A., she spent two summers at the Huron Playhouse in Huron, Ohio, and it was there she decided that acting would be her professional specialty.
The Beginning of Carolyn Lee’s Teaching Career
Following her master’s degree, Carolyn taught in high school for five years. Two of those years were spent at Theodore Roosevelt High School, an inner-city school in St. Louis, and three were at Westtown School, a Quaker boarding school 30 miles west of Philadelphia. At both of these institutions, she taught classes, directed plays and interacted with students, continuing to use drama and storytelling as ways of connecting and communicating. She realized, after three years at Westtown, that, if she were going to be able to teach the courses she really wanted to teach and teach them at the university level, she would need further graduate work. So, in 1968, she applied for a teaching fellowship at the University of Michigan, and, in September of that year, she began her work as a Ph.D. candidate.
Working for Up With People
She spent three years at the University of Michigan teaching acting and completing the course work for her graduate degree. At the end of that time, the prospect of writing a dissertation didn’t have much appeal, so she decided to postpone that task. She accepted a job as an on-the-road professor with the Up with People organization. Up with People was a non-profit, educational corporation that sent five casts of young people all over the world to do a musical show, participate in community service events, and attempt to spread good will and understanding among people of different cultures. Carolyn’s job was to provide course work to students who wanted to earn college credit while participating in the Up with People program. She spent three years on the road, criss-crossing the United States and traveling to Belgium, Italy, England, Germany and Spain. During that time, she lived with nearly a hundred host families, accumulating cultural experiences that filled a dozen journals.
Returning to the Classroom
After three years of constant travel, going back to school and writing her dissertation seemed the thing to do, so, in 1975, she returned to the University of Michigan, where she wrote her paper and graduated with a Ph.D. in Radio-TV-Film. Upon graduation, she was hired by the University of Texas in Austin to join their faculty. At UT, she taught Television Production and Acting for the Screen. Although her time at UT was satisfying and fun, after four years she began to consider other possibilities. She learned that Up with People was looking for an “Educational Consultant,” and she applied for the job.
Writing and Producing
Meanwhile, in March of 1981, a friend of Carolyn’s who lived in Lake City, Colorado, called her and asked her to write a show about Lake City and produce it there with people of the town serving as the cast. And so, she did. Beyond All Measure, a “light-hearted history of Lake City,” opened that July 4th weekend and caused quite a stir in the little mountain town. By closing night that summer, there was standing room only at the theater, and the show had become a tourist attraction in the area. Beyond All Measure continued to draw tourist crowds for four more summers.
At the end of the summer of 1981, Carolyn moved to Tucson, Arizona, where Up with People was headquartered and began her assignment as Educational Consultant. Primarily, her job was to visit each cast once a semester to encourage and support them. She spoke to the assembled students, led seminars and workshops with the staffs, and occasionally conducted rehearsals which focused on interpretation of lyrics. On one occasion, Carolyn was asked to speak to a cast that was about to board a bus and set out on the road. She wanted to prepare them for this event by saying some things that were simple and true about the Up with People experience. She wrote a speech called “Keep Your Eye on the Ball,” in which she expanded on that old cliché and admonished the cast to maintain their focus and remember what was important. As it turned out, “Keep Your Eye on the Ball” became Carolyn’s “signature piece,” and she repeated it for every cast, every year throughout her tenure with Up with People.
Carolyn Lee Does it All
As Up with People changed and grew, the position of Educational Consultant became less relevant, and so, Carolyn returned to college teaching, this time at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. There she taught Television Production, Acting for the Screen, and Survey of Film in the Department of Radio-TV-Film.
After five years at TCU, an opportunity arose for her to move into the corporate setting as a speaker and seminar leader. She stood in front of groups as disparate and diverse as The Fort Worth Independent School System, the Dairy Queen Corporation, the Methodist Council of Churches, and the American Society of Military Engineers. She led seminars and workshops in Interpersonal Communication, Listening Skills, Presenting Skills, and Customer Service.
Easing into Retirement
Retirement started to look appealing in about 2000, so little by little, Carolyn began to shed professional responsibilities and concentrate her interests and efforts elsewhere. She traveled to Thailand, Japan, Australia, Africa, Ireland, and Alaska. She took on the position of Drama Coach with a Fort Worth theater group and helped to prepare Beauty and the Beast, The Sound of Music, The Music Man, Mary Poppins, Hello, Dolly!, Singin’ in the Rain and Shrek for the stage.
Carolyn Lee Becomes an Author
For most of her professional life, friends and students and audience members have encouraged Carolyn Lee to write a book. When she thought of what she might say in a book, she thought about writing “Keep Your Eye on the Ball” all those years ago. She wondered if she could continue along that line and find other well-worn clichés that she might investigate. She had discovered that the hackneyed phrase, “Keep Your Eye on the Ball,” when thought about more carefully and plumbed for meaning, was actually very good advice and could be applied in a variety of life-circumstances. She thought maybe she could look more closely at other cliches and find in them meaningful counsel and good guidance. That is how Clichés to Live By was born. For the most part, the book is a compilation of stories that make a point and teach a lesson. It is a natural expression of life-lessons communicated by a teller of stories.
Carolyn Lee Continues to Write
Dr. Carolyn Lee is not only the author of a published book. Every week she writes a blog in which she investigates a popular cliché. She offers her insights on how this maxim relates to people today. Perhaps you want to know what part luck plays in our experience. Dive with her into the cliché, “As Luck Would Have It.” Or maybe you are more interested in where the phrase, “Cream of the Crop” originates. Explore her clichés, and find a deeper meaning in them each week by signing up to be part of Carolyn Lee’s Cliche Club.
