(upbeat music)
- My name is Evren Celik Wiltse.
I am an associate professor
of political science
here at SDSU.
I teach classes about
democracy, authoritarianism,
Latin American politics,
that's my regional specialty.
I am from, originally from Turkey.
People say, you know, you find someone
similar to you, we
can't be even, you know,
more different.
I'm short, he's tall.
I got a lot of good hair, he has no hair.
He's very light skinned
(laughs) to say the least.
And I am not.
I feel like I have to
defend my entire life.
Both my parents are pharmacists.
It's mostly kinda just hard science people
in the family.
We were vacationing when I was six
and the end of our summer vacation
there was, you know, we hit the road
and that was the military coup,
and I could see how politics
whether it's economic
decisions by the, you know, new government
or the overrule general
authority of the military
over the society, it just
shaped everyone's lives.
Not like the US.
Your day-to-day existence really is shaped
by the politics.
So that's what drew me into the major.
SDSU offered me, you know,
you come for an interview,
we selected you for an interview
and you know, we were all excited.
I came here and I saw the
Campanile, and the campus,
and the greens.
I'm like, this looks like
a really nice university,
like it really kinda
something in you like melts
and you feel like a positive vibe
with the place and I was glad to be hired
and yeah, so.
My job brought me here and frankly,
my, people say now it's
like wrong thing to say,
you know, your job is you,
but I feel like I read all my life,
you know, about politics, about societies,
about comparing and
contrasting so this is my life
and it's so important to
be able to perform my job
at a place where it is valued
and so that's what brought me here.
I appreciate the
stability in South Dakota,
I was able to write my books.
My students come from
all walks of you know,
they are the affluent ones,
they are the not so affluent ones,
they are, it's projected as
this is a very homogenous
state but it is not,
you just need to listen
to people's stories.
It is not, every person is unique.
