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In this episode of COMversations, Kevin and Dave chat with Jenny Farrell. Jenny's a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Communication Studies with over a decade of teaching experience at UNLV. She specializes in interpersonal communications with a specific focus on long-distance relationships. We'll hear how her personal experience in a long-distance relationship served as the catalyst for this line of inquiry. We'll also get some insight into how this Alanis Morissette and drag performance loving mother-of-two came to own a 28-year-old tortoise named Dandy.
In response to the Covid-19 Pandemic, the faculty and staff of the Department of Communication Studies began working from home and teaching online. Now that faculty and students are returning to campus and having more opportunities for face-to-face interactions, we almost feel like we need to re-introduce ourselves to our colleagues and students. The same is true for other schools and departments in the College of Urban Affairs and across the university. We believe that the best way to (re)introduce ourselves is by sharing the personal stories and backgrounds of our faculty and staff. The goal is to introduce each of our faculty and staff members to students, the public, and each other. Starting with these podcasts, we hope to build a podcasting network devoted to helping students and the public meet the people who teach the classes, conduct the research, and manage media operations. We also hope to get to know each other better and build a richer academic community. So lend an ear to the personal stories of the faculty and staff preparing students for a promising future.
Kevin Stoker
Welcome to COMversations, the stories behind the faculty and staff of the Department of Communication Studies. I'm Kevin Stoker, I am the Interim Chair of the Department of Communication Studies. And this is Dave Nourse. My sidekick, Dr. Dave Nourse.
Dave Nourse
Happy to be here, Kevin,
Kevin Stoker
He's an assistant professor residence in the School of Journalism Media Studies. And we have as our guest today, Jenny Farrell, who is a senior lecturer in the Department of Communication Studies, Jenny. Yeah. Hi, thanks for joining us.
Jenny Farrell
I am so happy to be here. This is exciting.
Kevin Stoker
Well, we're excited to have you know, the thing I think about use any as your expertise as interpersonal communications, and every now and again, when people want to know about relationships, and what's going on all the good stuff. You're the one that come after all the juicy stuff. Yeah, in fact, he did. There was a story just recently about how you teach these strategies of interpersonal communication in terms of relationships. I'm wondering, so how did you get interested in this? What was it that drove you to kind of be focused on? Relationships? Interpersonal Communication? Yeah, that's,
Jenny Farrell
um, that's a good question. So I've, I've been here at UNLV for over 10 years now. But originally, we I think, like a lot of Comm folks, we get sucked in with like, the basic courses, right. So I had no idea that comm was a field, took a basic course 100 years ago, got sucked in. And of course, changed my major and changed my whole life path. And so originally, I was really into the public speaking aspect, and then started to take some courses in interpersonal communication, and I saw how directly they applied to my personal life and my own relationships. And that was like the hooker for me, really. So in grad school, I focused on long distance relationships, because I had been in one for so many years. So actually married my high school sweetheart. And he joined the military when I went into school. And so we spent a lot of time apart, years apart, right, where we would travel to see each other, using a lot of you know, mediated communication, and we've always been successful at it. And nobody understood why, like, this should be terrible. Why are you doing so great. And so that was really interesting to me was, why does everyone, you know, have these kind of preconceived notions about being away from the people that we love. And so that's kind of why I got interested in it in grad school, and then I realized distance is so important for most of our relationships, right? So you can apply it to a lot of different aspects of our life, not just you know, if you have a long distance partner, but I just love all of the interpersonal stuff. I think it is so practical. So, you know, applicable to how we live our daily lives. And really, our relationships are everything, right? It's it's directly linked to our health or happiness or success. So I think it's like basic skills that we all really need. And even if you think you're great at it, you still need to, you know, work at it, practice. And we all make mistakes. But I think it's just so so relevant. So I just love it.
Kevin Stoker
So what happened when this long distance relationship finally ended? And you guys live together?
Jenny Farrell
Yeah. So we were long distance the whole time. I was an undergrad. And then he was still in the military. We got married, I moved to Germany, where he was stationed. And so we lived overseas for a while. But he was, you know, he's still deployed and was away a lot of the time. So we still kind of had moments of distance. And we were really good at that. And then it wasn't until years later, after we moved here, you know, for grad school, he got out of the military. And he decided he wanted to start his own business that we were like, I would say officially not long distance anymore. So we had, I don't know, like over 12 years where long distance was like a big part of our life. And that shift to him being around all the time was terrible. Terrible. And that's actually the research shows that is that some of the toughest times in a long distance relationship or when you transition to no longer being long distance, because a lot of times people think it's gonna be fantastic and amazing. You know, it's like this big countdown. That's all we want is to be together all the time. No, no, no, go away. You should go away. I think
Dave Nourse
one of the things personal personal anecdote here. My parents recently retired. And my mom had retired a couple years prior to my stepfather. And when my stepfather retired, my mom had really gotten used to having some alone time every day. Yeah. And now my stepfather is around all the time. She's pulling her hair out. Yes. And so I think the line of research that you do is so important and so applicable, because people throughout their lifespan might find themselves in a long term relationship or in a relationship where you're both working and then you're not working or maybe we were all CO was COVID. Right? all working together, and you're stuck together. Yeah, you're stuck together and you're literally nowhere else you can go. So I can imagine it's been a pretty exciting and, at times probably frustrating to be staying what you study? Yeah.
Jenny Farrell
Yeah, I mean, we quickly realized, like, we are very successful when we have those moments away from each other, because there are so many benefits for that. And thankfully, just the way that we live our lives, we, we still do things away from each other, he is on an off road racing team. So he travels a lot, which is great. He actually just got back from a trip to Baja. So you know, he'll be gone for two weeks at a time, I take trips, you know, with my friends, I go do stuff, we have, you know, a lot of other interests that don't involve our spouse, right. And so we definitely still have that element of autonomy, which I think is so very important in any relationship. So we kind of dabble a little bit, because we know that it keeps things fresh and exciting for us. And it's good to miss each other every now and then.
Kevin Stoker
Have you ever thought about doing a book about how to deal with long distance relationships? Because I'm sure especially, you know, the example of being in the military. There's a lot of folks dealing with this right now. And then we have the remote society, right? Oh, we've now created more dislocation?
Jenny Farrell
Absolutely. I've had a couple friends tell me like you should write a book. But I don't know when I would find what am I going to find the time to do this. Kevin? What am I going to do this? I would love to it sounds fantastic. Right? Well,
Kevin Stoker
it is it is a challenge. But yeah, we don't want you teaching any fewer.
Jenny Farrell
Right, exactly.
Kevin Stoker
Well, you know, tell me about kind of your background where you grew up and everything else. Sure.
Jenny Farrell
I'm actually from a small town in California called California city. So California city is a whole lot of nothing. It's just like a desert town. It's like three and a half hours away. It's still the high desert. So it's very much the same kind of like, desert feel. It's just really, really small. Like born and raised out there. When I graduated, I was so over the small town stuff, right? I mean, my graduating class was like 100 kids. And that was two towns combined. That was Mojave and California city. So yeah, when I graduated, I was like, Oh, I'm gonna go as far away as I can. Right. And then I realized out of state tuition was expensive. So scratch that I ended up in Northern California at Humboldt State University. Yeah. Which is pretty far. I mean, it's like a 12 hour drive. So that's, that's relatively far when you're 18. So yeah, I tried to get away as quickly as I could. And then I was there for four years. I started out as an English major, and then saw the light swapped over to, but my parents are still there. They still live in my, you know, the town, the home that I grew up in. My husband is also from California city. So yep, so his dad is still out there. We each have a younger sibling that is kind of in the area. They've moved out, you know, they're like, 45 minutes away, but they're still kind of in the area. We're the only ones that left and really never looked back escaped. Yes. Yes.
Kevin Stoker
Well, in you know, you had a small graduating class of 100 kids. I had 56 in mind. So hey, valedictorian. No, I was. There you go. You were Yeah, I can tell you I ranked much lower. Oh, no. Yeah. Below first. I think it was 56. I think I was 50.
Jenny Farrell
That's a small class.
Kevin Stoker
Yeah, yeah. Well, there's 250 in the whole school. And that included seventh and eighth grade.
Jenny Farrell
Oh, wow. Yeah, we had like 350 in the whole school. And that was just high school.
Kevin Stoker
There you go. That's, that sounds like a big school to me.
Jenny Farrell
Oh, man, that's, that's how I feel about the schools out here. I mean, the high schools out here are in saying to me,
Kevin Stoker
you know, as your interest in interpersonal communication and everything, you know, growing up in a small community like that, and really, in which, you know, everybody that may have had some, you know, influence over what you're doing now, and how you feel so comfortable in interpersonal situations?
Jenny Farrell
Yeah, potentially, um, I think I kind of always fell into a lot of those situations where you needed to talk to people, right? Like, I kind of found myself doing the types of we didn't have a ton of activities, because it was obviously like a very small school. But I always enjoyed the moments that I had, where I could really foster those relationships and connect with people. And like I said, like I said, I didn't even know that that was a thing. I didn't even know that that was a field, whereas I think most undergrads can relate to that. I have no idea that comm has a field. Whoo. Right. And so I didn't even realize that there was a potential, you know, career path there.
Dave Nourse
So you're a senior lecturer in the Department of Communications. What do you like to teach? What if there's, is there a particular course that you think strikes you as So this is my favorite.
Jenny Farrell
Yeah, yeah, my favorite is definitely calm 302. So that is issues and interpersonal communication. I focus on relational calm and that class. So I teach the basic interpersonal course, Intro to interpersonal communication, which is 102. And so 302 was like the follow up to that. So I feel like one or two, like barely scratches the surface of all these interpersonal skills. And then in 302, we can really dive a little bit deeper, we get into like the juicy or stuff, right? We talk about the tough stuff, and I just get the feedback from students that it's just super useful. And I love that I just think that's great.
Dave Nourse
And you touched on something just a minute ago, when you said that, you know, students usually start out somewhere else prior to changing their major to communications after they realize, holy cow, this really has so much applicability to life. What is it that you do in your classes that you teach? Or you think that the department does really well as a whole that kind of speaks to students and says, This is why you should come and study here?
Jenny Farrell
Yeah, I feel like that is like half of my job literally, is literally trying to show people the light, right. Like, that's kind of how I felt when I discovered calm. And so I think, for me, and for a lot of other instructors in our department, it's a it's a part of how we present the information, right? So I'm always bringing it back to here's what you can do with this, right? Here's the potential that is connected to, you know, a career path or a personal interest are something relating to all of the topics. And I also try to like, set them up with other people who do some of these things that maybe I don't, right, so I try to gather as many like guest speakers guest lectures to come in and really talk about the things that they do and and how the content really connects to their lives, just to give them a lot of examples, right? Because I think, like I said, it's just it's just about exposing them to these things. So they get a sense of like, what the possibilities are. So I tried to do a lot of that in class.
Kevin Stoker
Oh, about at home, I know you have two kids 10 year old, a seven year old? Yes. And do they ever say Mom, don't use your inner pollute personal strategies on us? Yes,
Jenny Farrell
it's a nightmare. So these children, and they've actually come to class with me multiple times. Those days, when they have a staff development day, or it's a holiday and mom has class or there's Take Your Child to Work Day, they definitely come in and sit in my classes. So they know what I do. They have a sense of what I do. They know what I teach. And but they're still regular kids. Right? So sometimes they will call me out when I make mistakes, which I think is great, but also a nightmare. Right?
Dave Nourse
I say that I do.
Jenny Farrell
Exactly. So they're, they're always watching, we know that. But you know, some of the things that they have been in class to talk about, I think it's just really interesting that they, they get it right, like they can make those connections we talk about, like, love languages, they know what love languages are, they know their love languages, they know my love languages. So you know, they understand a lot about like emotions and communicating affection. And I just think that's really cool to, you know, have a conversation with your 10 year old about the way that they prefer to give and receive affection. Like, that's pretty cool. So I think in those capacities, it it makes me a much more thoughtful parent. Right. But like I said, they will point out those times when I am not doing a great job.
Kevin Stoker
Also this ability to communicate, it's probably why you're on the parent teacher organization.
Jenny Farrell
Yeah. I think I'm good at rallying people. Right. I think I'm good at rallying people. And so any type of leadership position is I think so much of like rallying and motivating folks, and also picking out what they're good at, and getting them to act. Right. So I see you have this amazing skill. Let's do something with it. Right. And so yes, I'm like, way too involved with the PTO. But we're doing better this year, because now I'm getting, I'm getting more people to join, because we kind of started this by ourselves. It was just me and a couple other parents. So last year, we did a lot ourselves. Now I'm ready to really like, grab up those other parents and teachers and have them run with the strengths that they have. Because I'm realizing there are some really talented, amazing people who are willing to do the work, and really put the time in and I'm like, Man, this is incredible. So it's rewarding. It's exhausting, also, but yeah,
Kevin Stoker
you know, Dave, I should tell you that one of Jenny's real strengths we know is communication. But what really surprised me is when I went to her house for social, she actually has a turtle. I have a tortoise tortoise and then So big tortoise, it is the most. What? You know, friendliest tortoise I think I've ever met. He's very social. So yeah, there we go is a social forest. And I thought, Oh my goodness. Jenny's home is, you know, even creating a nice social environment for
Jenny Farrell
people and pets alike.
Dave Nourse
I think that says a lot about you and probably your family anyway. But it's not every family that has a tortoise.
Jenny Farrell
Yeah. It's pretty cool. So we actually he's 28 his name is dandy. It's short for dandy lion. He lives in my backyard. My husband built him a borough so he hibernates down there, right. It's
Kevin Stoker
a cool borough too. Yeah.
Jenny Farrell
I mean, it's, it's awesome. And props to the hubby for all of his, you know, labor skills. And yeah, he's really cool. He's super friendly. He was raised by an older couple out here in Vegas, and they had him from a hatchling. And then he just got, you know, they got too old to be able to really handle him. So we adopted him from them when he was like, 23. I think he was 23 when we got him. Yeah.
Dave Nourse
How big is your tortoise?
Jenny Farrell
He's he they don't get humongous, right? So they're not like Galapagos. Kinda, but he's, you know, he's like this big. How big would you say this is?
Dave Nourse
20 pounds. Maybe?
Jenny Farrell
I don't think he's that heavy. He's maybe like a foot. Maybe a foot in diameter, maybe a little bit bigger. But he likes it. When you rub on his head. He'll like you don't like a dog. Yeah, you know, like a dog will like rub back. They'll push up against you. He does that with his head. You pat his head. You know, you can feed him from your hand. Yeah, he's cool. He doesn't mind. My I haven't I have a 12 year old Bassett. Also he doesn't mind my dog. Yeah,
Dave Nourse
it's fun. So we've learned a little bit about you. Yeah, California city. Yes. Move to Las Vegas for grad school. Yes, I have a couple of kids and a tortoise Tabasum. When you are not at UNLV, or taking care of your children or pets or husband, what do you do? What do you do for fun not sleeping? Or sleeping there?
Jenny Farrell
Okay. Um, I try to do as much social stuff as I can. Because I'm always so busy, like working on stuff, right? I tend to be the person that is always scheduling the get togethers. I don't know if you could, if that's surprising to you at all. But I'm always like, Hey, we should go out we should go out we should go out. So I try to go out as often as possible. So I love living in Las Vegas. I think this is incredible city. I moved here for grad school we never left. So we've been here almost, I think 15 years now. Just because of the awesome opportunities. So I love to go to shows. I love to go to concerts I went to life is beautiful. recently. I love to go to the shows at the Smith Center. That's amazing. I just saw Jagged Little Pill a couple of weeks ago, which is the production of the Atlantis Morissette album. That was like life changing. Front Row, front and center. Yes, big Atlantis Morissette huge. I've seen her in concert like four times I own the album. It's so good. The show is phenomenal. So like those kinds of things I love I try to drag everyone I know my daughter loves that stuff, too. And comes with me to a lot of shows her and I are going to see six. It's like next week, I think. Yeah. So I go to a lot of shows. When I can I love a good happy hour. Yes, I hear. Natalie is trying to start like a greenspon Happy Hour. Girls sort of situation. And I'm like, sign me up on the availability. I'm like, yes, yes, yes, yes, let's go. I'm ready for it. So those kinds of things, I tried to like have a little moment right to get away from everyone, away from my family when I can foster all of my other relationships with my colleagues, my friends, you know, and have a good time as well.
Kevin Stoker
That's great. Yeah.
Dave Nourse
So where do you go from here? You've been your senior
Jenny Farrell
second question.
Dave Nourse
What's next for you?
Jenny Farrell
I don't know. I have I have a hard time planning too far ahead. Like I often get asked, like, what's your five year plan? And I genuinely don't know, I think I tend to take it a semester at a time tends to be how I think about my life. Especially with my kids being so young, it's like things are kind of unpredictable when they're this young. And I want to be as available for them as I can. So I don't like to take on too many big things. And then I often will just kind of fall into stuff, you know, like random committees or whatever that take up a lot of my time. So I really don't know. I love teaching. I feel like I will do that as long as I possibly can. That's always been, I think, obviously the most fulfilling part of my job. It was difficult going online. But it wasn't terrible, because I'm pretty good at that too. So I was able to make that work. But I really, really love being in the classroom. I've thought about doing like consulting, you know, I've had I've had a couple organizations and groups asked me to come in and give like do like a workshop on interpersonal skills or something like that. So I've done a little bit of that. So I think there's potential to maybe do more of that. But I don't want to get away from teaching. So I don't know. It's a delicate balance, we'll see. Seems like you're in a pretty good place, though. Yeah, yeah, I really enjoy what I do. I'm very happy with, you know, the I mean, obviously, they they got me and then I just won't leave. Right. I have I have very little plans to ever leave. I just really enjoy it here. So, you know, we'll read that out. I'm happy
Dave Nourse
to hear that. Yeah, great. Yeah, absolutely.
Kevin Stoker
Well, Jenny is, you know, as we've had this conversation, is there something that you felt like you just really, that would help us understand you know, you better that we haven't asked you about something that maybe, you know, that wouldn't be so obvious. What would it be?
Jenny Farrell
I like Pilates. Pilates is fun. I don't do it as often as I would like, because of my children. But I do like that. I also am a big fan of drag. So drag performances. This is a good sound. Yeah, exactly. And that's from that's from like, folks in the column department. They have introduced me to it, which and then I introduced my daughter to it, and she also loves it also. So I would say those are some things that you might not know about me.
Kevin Stoker
Yeah. Well, we really appreciate your time. Yeah, for sure. This was fun. It was fun to talk. Yeah. Very cool.
Dave Nourse
Thank you very much, Jenny. You're welcome. Thanks, Jenny.