Thanksgiving starts the holiday season in the United States. For educational institutions like Florida Gulf Coast University’s Renaissance Academy in downtown Punta Gorda, that means a slowdown of academic activity for winter break.

This annual lull offers an opportunity to use this column to profile some of the instructors responsible for the Renaissance Academy’s success. Most students don’t know their instructor/facilitator was a Panama Canal commissioner, a Ph.D. in English literature, a national champion ballroom dancer or a musician who worked through college playing in jazz bands.