Professor Profile: Ethel Rackin, Ph.D.
Professor Ethel Rackin, who has been teaching language and literature at Bucks County Community College since 2010, also finds time to pursue her passion – writing. She recently published her fourth poetry book, In Time (Word Works Books, 2025), about grief, loss, and the passage of time. Rackin launched her latest book when she appeared at the 2025 Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference and Book Fair in Los Angeles with other authors from her press, and recently held a local launch at the Doylestown Bookshop.
The Philadelphia native earned her B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, her MFA from Bard College, and her Ph.D. from Princeton University, and taught at Haverford College and Penn State University before coming to Bucks.
She recently sat down to talk about her writing, her teaching, and why she is so inspired by Bucks students.
Why did you choose poetry as a means to convey your creativity?
I started writing poetry when I was a kid. I think the first serious poem I wrote was in seventh grade at Germantown Friends School. I had a wonderful teacher, Roy Farrar, who had us journaling. When I told him that I didn’t know how to write poems, he said, “Well, just try to compare yourself to something else using like or as.” So, I think I compared myself to a tree, and then he encouraged us to develop our comparison.
And from then on, I was hooked on writing poetry. I think I took to it because it offered me a space to say things that would otherwise have been difficult or impossible to say. I also think that the associations that you can make between one thing and another in a poem really spoke to me. The ability to use dream-like logic, associative meaning, visual clues—all of that was the right language for me. I don't have much of a sense of plot or storyline, even though I teach fiction writing. I don't tend to think that way, so poetry was kind of a natural direction for me from early on.
Where did you grow up?
I grew up in the Germantown area of Philadelphia and went to Germantown Friends School. I was very fortunate. My parents made a lot of sacrifices for my sister and me to go there; it was a good education. And we never moved. I went to Penn, where my mother was a professor who taught Shakespeare. My father was an English Professor as well, at Temple University for over 40 years.
And then I never really left Philadelphia. I did one year abroad in France, and I did my MFA at Bard College in Upstate New York. So, other than a few summers and other things here and there, I've really been in the Philadelphia area continuously.
In Time is your fourth poetry book. At what point did you decide to publish your work?
From early on I wanted to publish my work, although I wasn't sure exactly what I would do for a career. I always knew that you couldn't really make money writing poetry, so I always knew I would have to find a career, whether that was editorial work, or then it ended up being teaching. But from the time I was a teenager, I knew I wanted to be a writer.
In addition to teaching, you're the director of the Bucks County Poet Laureate program and the Wordsmith's Reading Series, all while you’re writing. How does your role as a published author influence your role as a professor?
I think that it makes me more empathetic towards students’ struggles, because writing for all of us, even for published writers, is really challenging. And so I understand the whole process because I'm always doing it myself.
I think it also puts me in touch with what's happening right now in the culture in terms of writing, and I hope to bring that to my students through the Wordsmiths Reading Series and through the selections that I teach in class, so that they can get a better understanding of writing as a living art, and writers as real people just like them with the same kinds of struggles and situations that we all deal with. I hope that this makes their studies feel more relevant and more exciting to them.
In your many years here, what stands out to you that's quite memorable?
A couple of things come to mind that I especially love. One is when I go to commencement and see a student that I've worked with graduating. I get to see their family cheering them on, and I always end up crying at those moments because I'm just so proud of our students with all the things they're balancing to accomplish this. It just makes me so joyful to be any part of that.
Similarly, I’m thrilled when I hear from former students, which I frequently do. I absolutely love when a student is able to achieve their dreams here at Bucks, then go on in some cases into a trade, in other cases into a four-year program and then sometimes beyond, and then are up and running.
I had one student, Hal Conte, who was in our honors program and worked with Professor Tony Rogers in journalism. He was a fantastic student. He finished his journalism degree at Temple, then received a Fulbright Scholarship to study for a year in London, and now he's in a Ph.D. program. And all along he has been a working journalist, and I'm still in touch with him. This just makes everything worthwhile when we see our students really, really succeed, and a number of them do.
Before you came to Bucks, you taught at a public university and a private college. What is the difference compared to a community college, and what’s keeping you here?
I really have so much respect, and in some cases awe, for our students who are, in my view, really heroes and heroines who are balancing so many things. Most of them often balance multiple jobs, putting themselves through school, helping family members or raising children themselves or coming back as non-traditional students. Watching these students really excel and thrive is quite different. I definitely feel a greater sense of purpose in helping students reach their dreams. It gives us an opportunity to give back in a real way that feels very concrete and immediate.
The Poet Laureate Program and the Wordsmiths Reading Series is another thing that initially drew me to Bucks and has kept me here. Working under the tutelage of Dr. Christopher Bursk for all of those years and being welcomed into this literary community, which is so friendly and so supportive and so vibrant here in Bucks County, has been wonderful. The college has always been a leader of that community, and I feel privileged to keep that over 50-year tradition going.
Our Wordsmiths Series is known not only locally, but certainly nationally, and in some cases, even internationally. I see this when I travel around the country, go to conferences, talk to visiting writers. They know about our series, and they hold it in high esteem, so it's a wonderful pleasure to be able to keep that going and to make sure that thrives here in Bucks County.