A teacher who grew up in the Dallas area, teaches four classes, and is a graduate of Texas A&M can be very valuable to any department. However, to have a teacher who spent two years in the seminary, graduated Jesuit as Salutatorian of the Class of 2003, and performs comedic improv shows on weekends adds another level of value to Jesuit as a whole. The man who can lay claim to all these labels is Mr. Paul Kolker.
Paul Michael Kolker was born in the Dallas area on December 28th, 1985 to his two parents, Mike and Kathy. Mrs. Kolker was a chiropractor and Mr. Kolker (Sr.) still works in sales for a software company, Wholesalers & Distributors. Kolker, the oldest of four, grew up in Coppell and attended St. Luke Catholic School in Irving.
He reminisced, “We had a pretty big backyard so a lot of what we’d do is run around the yard, [playing] tag, football, or frisbee; just a lot of outdoors kind of stuff.” When asked about his fondest childhood memory, Kolker pointed to a baseball in a clear, glass case across from his desk in his office. He answered, “Probably hitting a home run in the championship game of an undefeated season in seventh grade little league baseball. The whole thing; it was kind of like a picture perfect moment.”
In the spring of 1999, Mr. Kolker was accepted into Jesuit. His parents, growing up in Dallas themselves, attended Bishop Dunne Catholic School, so Mr. Kolker felt that he had some sense of loyalty to the school. However, while discerning between schools to attend, he knew that “Jesuit was a really good school and it would set me up for success,” which helped make his decision. Being the first to attend Jesuit from his family, Mr. Kolker noted that “it was a little different, a little unnerving in that sense” to attend, but he admits he “didn’t know it would be the brotherhood that it had ended up being.” Kolker also went on to say that he still keeps in touch with a couple of his closest friends to this day.
Mr. Kolker also attended St. Ann’s Catholic Church in Coppell and actively participated in youth group, which played a crucial role in his spiritual development. Kolker recalled that, “it was at youth group that I really started to discern [towards the priesthood] and start to really think about all that.”
His brothers, Matthew ’09 and Kevin ’11, also attended Jesuit. “I think they [both] got the Man For Others award or something one year… One of my brothers was Valedictorian, so he had to show me up,” Kolker joked. Additionally, his sister Maresa graduated from Ursuline in 2005.
While at Jesuit, Mr. Kolker participated and succeeded in a wide range of activities, such as Campus Ministry, the Improv Club, and the Swim Team. But senior year stuck out to Mr. Kolker, who recalled that “Senior year was a blast, probably my favorite year of all the years here [as a student]. Between Community Days and knowing everybody well at that point or at least having a really solid group of friends… being on the improv troop… [I] got to be one of the lead roles in the Ursuline play that year.” Additionally, Mr. Kolker lettered in swimming and was named Salutatorian of his graduating class. He added, “There’s just a lot of stuff that really came together during my Senior year.” Mr. Kolker was heavily involved in Campus Ministry, as he served as a lector, an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion, and a Freshman Retreat Small Group Leader.
Out of all of the classes he took at Jesuit, his junior year theology class was his favorite by a wide margin. The course was taught by the late Fr. TJ Martinez S.J., who was “one of the most influential teachers” in Mr. Kolker’s eyes. He added, “He was awesome, he just knew his stuff, and he would mix in a lot of philosophy as well.” The class had a profound impact on him, and he attributes his interest and fondness for Philosophy to that particular class.
While on retreat, Mr. Kolker “remembered thinking, ‘I’ve got to give this a serious shot.'” Since he was involved with Campus Ministry, he “felt like I was able to help guide people and it was reaffirming of that idea [of the priesthood].” Also, while serving his parish and Jesuit in various fashions, he remembered that “Nobody was ever really pushing for it in any way. I had people tell me I should consider it, like the stereotypical old ladies at mass saying, ‘Oh, you’d make such a good priest!,’ because I did readings and I was a lector.”
Mr. Kolker attended Texas A&M in the fall of 2003, majoring in Aerospace Engineering. Mr. Kolker has always enjoyed mathematics, and this love influenced his major greatly. He explained that “I think I’ve just always liked the elegance of it…how perfectly it all works and how logical it is.” While he was there, Mr. Kolker yet again participated in the Improv Club on campus.
Throughout his first two years at A&M, the thought of entering the seminary still tugged at him. Towards the end of first semester of his junior year at A&M, he thought to himself, “There’s never going to be a good time to do this. If I don’t do this now, I don’t know when I’m going to do this.”
Quite daringly, Kolker subsequently decided to leave Texas A&M and study at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota for the Priesthood of the Diocese of Dallas, an atypical route for most students. Over the course of a year and a half, Kolker received a degree in Philosophy in addition to his minor in Math, which sadly did not transfer over from Texas A&M. After being awarded his degree, the Vocations Director at St. Paul decided to send Mr. Kolker to Rome to further his studies in the seminary.
Over the course of two years, he took multiple theology courses at the Gregorian University of Rome, a 460-year-old institute founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola himself. “It was crazy studying with people from France and Germany and Italy and North Africa. And all of us being situated there in Rome was a unique and insane experience to be part of all that,” said Kolker.
The memory which stuck out the most to Kolker was the experience of having all of his classes taught purely in Italian. Kolker connected not being able to understand the language to listening to the parents’ voices in a Charlie Brown cartoon. He elaborated that “every so often I would pick up a word, like “church” or “Jesus” or “classed dismissed” intermittently.”
One experience that Kolker called “a little crazy,” was when he received the opportunity to serve a mass at the Vatican, carry Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s crosier, and receive communion from the Pope himself all in the same mass. Kolker adds, “it was the [crosier] that [St.] John Paul II used when he was Pope, so that was a little wild too.”
Soon after leaving the seminary, fall of 2011 rolled around and Kolker began teaching as a substitute teacher at Jesuit. “I wouldn’t necessarily teach, although sometimes if it was something I was familiar with, I would help students or give them some coaching,” he clarified. Mr. Kolker soon was called upon to teach full-time classes as Mr. Michael Couvillon, a current Precalculus teacher, left on paternity leave for the birth of his child two weeks earlier than expected. The day was hectic, Kolker recalling that he was on a walk when he received the call from Donahue to take over a classes midday. Kolker vividly remembered the in-class experience because he “opened the book to the section that we were on, looked at it for five minutes,” and taught. He added, “I was really thankful for my improv experience because it helped me get through that class.”
Mr. Kolker took over those classes (Pre-calculus, Honors Pre-Cal, and Statistics) for a period of two weeks or so until, in the middle of December, Mrs. Williams went on leave. When she returned, Kolker explained, “they moved her up to Educational Technologist and they asked me to stay on and keep her classes for the rest of the year… and that’s how I got my start as a full-time teacher.” Currently, Mr. Kolker teaches two geometry sections, an Algebra 2 section, and a Pre-Calculus section. He attributes his prolonged stay to “the way Jesuit worked… the fact that it was focused on growth… It wasn’t just ‘here’s an academic program’, but ‘here’s a whole formation process.'”
Aside from teaching, Mr. Kolker is highly involved in campus ministry due to the experiences he had as a student. He explained, “I feel like I’ve been blessed to receive a lot, and I want to be able to share that, first of all.” Echoing this sentiment, his experiences “in enough different circumstances and countries” have allowed him to see that “everybody’s ultimately looking for the same thing at the end of the day: that’s to love and to be loved.” He continued, “the fact that I get to help in Campus Ministry, hopefully to bring that into people’s focus and their awareness, and help them to connect with God… It’s very rewarding and enriching to see, like on the Kairos retreats, where some of these seniors get to a place where they feel that sense of love and a better sense of who God is.”
In Mr. Kolker’s personal life, he has kept up with a unique hobby: improv comedy. Kolker is currently in a comedy troop that improvises and performs “scenes from the past.” He explained, “we get a suggestion of a page number, and we turn to the page, and then we read a little blurb, and then we perform based off that.” While sounding very fun and exciting, Kolker admitted that “[performing] does wear me out sometimes and I just crash and I need a day where I don’t do anything at least every other week because it can be exhausting.” Additionally, Kolker believes improv comedy to be an ongoing theme, starting with the Missing 18 Minutes senior improv troop at Jesuit, continuing improv at A&M, even establishing a group within the seminary called Roman Collared Comedy, and to the present, 13 years after his stage debut. Kolker attributes his affinity for performing improv comedy to the fact that he “just love[s] this stuff, like I just love making a fool out of myself and hopefully bringing entertainment to other people as well in the process… like teaching.”
Mr. Kolker has formed a number of student relationships due to his social media presence, his active classroom activities, and his infamous procedure of kicking people out of his class. Many also know that Mr. Kolker’s students have created many monikers for him; a list that seems to have no end. Such include: Kolk-a Cola, Kolkaine, Kolk-Daddy, Dad, Coach, and, his personal favorite: The Kolkulator.
Mrs. Elise Stewart, Faculty Counselor, believes that “as a graduate, [Kolker] understands the culture of what it means to be a student here. His experience finds voice in the classroom now that he is teaching. I think being a relatively recent graduate, Mr. Kolker can remember the process of engaging with and internalizing the Profile of the Graduate at Graduation. I know he can connect his students process of internalizing it and engaging with it as he leads them on the journey each year.” She continued, “He has invaluable gifts that reveal his personality inside and outside the classroom – his humor, his high intelligence, his devotion to faith, to name a few.”
Similarly, Dominic Iannelli ’15 commented, “Mr. Kolker is one of my favorite teachers at Jesuit. He made pre-cal fun and showed us how we could apply the concepts we learned in class to things in the real world, such as sword fighting and computer programs.”
The caring and personable personality of Mr. Kolker certainly distinguishes him as one of the unique personalities of the Math Department. Iannelli summed up Mr. Kolker’s goals in working for Jesuit as “[caring] about his students beyond just their academic lives.”
