“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.” -Albert Schweitzer

This has been a recent theme in the life of Dr. Paul Reinsch, Associate Professor of Practice and Head of History, Theory, Criticism in the School of Theatre and Dance. From scholarly awards to prestigious publications to contributing to valuable grants for the department, he has certainly kept busy.

One of Dr. Reinsch’s most significant achievements this year has involved working with fellow SOTD colleagues Jared Roberts and Natalie Mayo to earn the Presidential Departmental Excellence in Safety Award for 2024, an annual grant of $25,000 presented to a TTU department which exhibits outstanding practices in safety in research, scholarly and creative activity.

The decision to pursue this award has been several years in the making. Former safety officer Roberts sought collaborators in the past and Dr. Reinsch replied, “Count me in,” excited at the prospect of working with a colleague whose work rarely naturally overlapped with his own. When Mayo took over as safety officer, they eagerly brought her into the loop as well. The mission began to tell the story of the school and its safety efforts, and to find the perfect time for applying. Each school is only eligible to win every five years, and while the team knew that SOTD had a strong case, Dr. Reinsch joked, “We also knew it’d be stronger if we weren’t competing against the [departments] that blow stuff up.” This strategy paid off, successfully earning well-deserved recognition for the school. It even fulfilled one of his lifelong dreams: winning a big check.

On the scholarly side, Dr. Reinsch has received high praise from fellow faculty members for his contributions to the school. He earned the Integrated Scholar award for the 2023-2024 school year, which celebrates faculty who display outstanding achievement in teaching, research and service, as well as promoting the amalgamation of these practices into all facets of one’s work. He was initially nominated by SOTD Director Dr. Mark Charney and appreciates not only the recognition this brings to his own work, but also how “it makes other people on campus aware of theatre and dance. It allows other people to see that Dr. Charney is supportive of the faculty.”

This support further led this year to Dr. Reinsch’s appointment for membership in the 2024-2025 President’s Leadership Institute, a selective program which recruits aspiring leaders across the TTU campus for a series of seminars to develop their skills. His greatest sources of encouragement when applying were Dr. Charney and fellow Associate Professor of Practice Kyla Olson. So, when asked about what excites Dr. Reinsch most about the Leadership Institute, he joked, “Nothing,” but then continued: “No, I’m excited to learn about best practices in leadership. I think of leadership as opportunities for collaboration. What I’m really hoping to learn from the experience is how to collaborate while negotiating hierarchies, and how to have healthy, functioning relationships.”

Even with a year of day-long seminars to undertake, Dr. Reinsch has no plans for slowing down soon, with two major projects coming up for publication. The first is a collaboration with colleague Laurel Westrup, with whom he had previously worked on the book The Soundtrack Album: Listening to Media. They had co-authored an article on the use of Prince’s music in Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman film. Recently, they revised the article for publication in an upcoming collection of essays about Prince, which he notes “is about as exciting as getting a big check. It’s a good feeling.”

He has also been delving into the world of business communications again with his father, scholar and academic N. Lamar Reinsch. They had previously worked together on an essay for the book Python beyond Python: Critical Engagements with Culture, about Monty Python founder John Cleese’s series of business training videos, effectively combining both their passions and their “areas of ignorance.” This collaboration went so well that they have co-written another article for publication in the International Journal of Business Communication. Overall, it’s a full circle moment for the Reinsch’s, seeing as father had inspired son to pursue academia.

Dr. Reinsch does not perceive himself as someone who seeks out leadership roles, but as someone always looking around for ways to be useful. He refers to his father’s baseball metaphor of being the “middle infielder,” always going where he is most needed. He is focused on helping students figure out how to make good use of their time and helping his colleagues accomplish their goals.

“The opportunity to work with people doing different stuff is scary, but there’s not much danger of me around here getting sick of what I’m doing because I don’t do the same thing hundreds of times. Humanities is where the real humans live.”

Success through happiness indeed.