More than just a professor
AnneMarie Kooistra, a professor at Bethel University, was inspired by her father at a young age and she now studies prostitution, a unique area of study.
By Isabella Chavez | Reporter
Professor AnneMarie Kooistra grew up under the influence of a father who put himself in danger daily and influenced by the stories that came with it. A strong woman and professor seen through a policeman, who is her father. She takes the stories, danger and kind work of her father and puts it into her research and future. Researching serious topics to share to the world, and in her classrooms at Bethel University. As well as moving forward with herself through her father’s footsteps.
Kooistra — now a history, humanities, gender equality professor and the leader of the honors program — uses her work and time to study the prostitution and the masculinization transformation of what prostitution is in the 19th century in Los Angeles. From finding texts from newspapers, autobiographies, legal documents and dealing with people’s states, she pulls all of this information into her research. Learning about the red light districts down dark the streets of LA, the small rooms and the power and the system of the men and women who organize their own businesses of prostitution,
“A hippie without money,” Kooistra said about herself.
A woman with a funky jungle garden brings more to the table than being a hippie and professor. Kooistra today as a Bethel University professor has come from the inspiration of her father and her research, but also went to law school before becoming the professor she is today in Bethel’s classrooms.
To be her father’s assistant, he would arrest them and she’d be the attorney, to now being a woman inspiration in her classroom and as well as her study.
“I try to have very thick skin and my fathers attitude.” — AnnaMarie Kooistra, Bethel University Profesor and prostitution researcher.
