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Carin Persea/In Motion

Dr. Kevin Jordan is a self-described "dinosaur" in the Biological Sciences department. He prefers phone calls and in-person conversations with students to emails and never lectures from PowerPoint slides. He expects students to be able to take notes without copying from a screen. He has been teaching at Daytona State for 22 years and doesn't plan on stopping anytime soon.

His teaching approach requires students to fully participate in class and not just be spectators. He wants his students to be educated, not entertained. While fearing that his older methods may become obsolete, he says that in the technologic age we are in, they're at least unique.

Dr. Jordan is not your standard biology teacher in more ways than his style of lecturing. He enjoys boats and cars, his original passion was English and he is currently writing a novel inspired by his experiences in the Bahamas while working on his doctoral project. Describing himself, Jordan laughs and says "I think I invented ADD."

His work in the Bahamas is the stuff of stories and while he only casually mentions his experiences during his lectures, it's clear he's lived adventures others only read about.

Dr. Jordan lived in sailboat off of an uninhabited Bahamian island while he studied the Bahamian Hutia, a porcupine-like creature, for his doctoral project. He lived alone, except for three months, when a seventeen year-old assistant, who dropped out of high school to work on the project, joined him. Dr. Jordan's assistant, Donnie May, re-enrolled after working with him, graduating with honors and now teaching at Silver Sands Middle School.

The time Jordan spent in the Bahamas also included a job as the manager of the Ardastra Gardens, Zoo, & Botanical Gardens on the island of Nassau. The previous manager had gone shopping in Miami and was arrested for leaving the US illegally. When Jordan heard about the job opening, he wrote a letter.

"I talked myself into the position," Jordan says, "I was completely unqualified for it."
During his time at the zoo in 1984, the facility was in a position of taking a delivery of a group of gorillas bound for the US. It would have been the last importation of wild-captured gorillas into the country, but the deal fell through amid controversy.

Jordan's love of literature has followed him through life and not surprisingly, his experiences are the basis for a novel he's working on.

"I'm not by nature a scientist, but I think that gives me perspective," Jordan says.

Introducing new courses such as this semester's Biological Themes in Film and a new program he is working on to bring the study of Aquaculture to DSC, are part of what keeps Jordan teaching.

"I do this because I've done other things and there's nothing else I could do for twenty-four years."

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