Mount’s new professor discusses his past and plans for the future
By Peter Edwards
Observer Contributor
New English faculty at the Mount Zach Buscher hopes to continue to improve on his developmental writing class while also expanding his reach to other core college courses as he spends more time here.
Since becoming part of Mount Wachusett Community College’s faculty during the summer of 2019, Zach Buscher has made his presence known in the English department by creating an entirely new and intensive writing class.
Buscher said his work so far with his MWCC students has been “very rewarding,” as he works intensively four days a week with the students in his 097 class that he created. He’s been able to work with students that weren’t quite ready for college level writing classes and by the end of the semesters he claims that “it is some of the best writing I’ve seen.” Considering Buscher has been teaching at Quinsigamond Community College for the last 11 years of his life shows how impressed he has been so far with the students at MWCC.
Although Buscher considers himself a poet and a writer, his work here implementing a Developmental Writing Class hasn’t gone unnoticed. Professor Buscher is also a published poet. Poetry wasn’t always his passion, as Buscher was more interested in films and novels in his earlier years. However, during his junior year he was chosen as one of eighty-five students to study abroad in the Netherlands at Emerson College’s Kasteel Well. There he took his first poetry class and since has become a determined and established poet.
After studying abroad in the Netherlands and receiving his Masters in Fine Arts at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Buscher has returned to his home state of Massachusetts. Buscher recalled a story that he thinks propelled him. After turning in some of his work to his Professor Peter Jay Shippy, Buscher recalled some of the feedback he received from him. Shippy proclaimed Buscher as a “real poet”. At that point his confidence grew exponentially, and he began his journey of becoming a published author.
Since that moment Professor Buscher has been published on platforms such as 2opus, SHAMPOO, 580 Split, Otoliths, and Tinfoildresses, with more forthcoming in My Name is Mud, Wheelhouse Magazine, and sawbuck.
Buscher said that his future plans are to continue writing and establish himself as professor here at MWCC in hopes of being here for the foreseeable future. He has also reignited his passion for getting his work published and has written close to 200 pages of poetry over the last year and half.
Buscher said that some of his most recent work based around personal memoirs landed him a residency this summer at his favorite art museum, the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams. He plans to continue his work on his most recent projects there this summer with hopes of one day getting his own poetry book published.
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