Upon entering Porterhouse Grill, brunch may not be the first thing that pops into your head by observing the interior. A large, elongated bar with wooden stools greets you at the front of the restaurant with stacks of bottles shelved behind it. The aroma of freshly made biscuits coming out of the oven drifts through the restaurant as chefs prepare for the incoming brunch rush.

When it comes to a home cooked meal, Athens residents don’t have to travel far to satisfy their taste buds. The Classic City serves as a food utopia for visitors looking to indulge in Southern-style cuisine. With hundreds of restaurants offering almost every type of food known to man, finding a spot that caters to even the pickiest of eaters is no hard task.

This is especially true for foodies who live for attending brunch every weekend. If you have been under a rock for the past 90 years and have not been subjected to heavily filtered Instagram photos of French toast and omelets, brunch is essentially a mixture between brunch and lunch. Several eateries throughout the bustling college town offer brunch menus on the weekends, including Porterhouse Grill and South Kitchen + Bar..

“We started offering brunch shortly after we opened and it started out as a way to utilize all the ingredients we had,” said Shawn Butcher, the general manager of Porterhouse Grill.

Butcher also said that the original brunch buffet meal cost $10.95 per person, but as the restaurant became more popular, the buffet options – and the price – expanded.

Porterhouse Grill opened 17 years ago on Broad Street in Downtown Athens and serves brunch every Sunday from 11:30 a.m. until 2:00 p.m.

“Seven or eight years ago, there was an article in the Red & Black and the Athens Banner-Herald talking about what a great value our brunch was and it exploded from there,” Butcher added.

What began as a small buffet featuring basic breakfast options grew to be what it is today with items such as fresh fruit, pancakes, biscuits, gravy and even cheesecake. Yes, cheesecake for breakfast.

The current price of the brunch buffet is $16.95 for regular customers and $12 for customers who work in the service industry.

Butcher said the reduced price for service industry workers was implemented to give back to people who work in restaurants and hotels around town.

While busy college students and young professionals in Athens might not make time for breakfast, on weekend mornings, having the time to linger over brunch is something they appreciate.

While a 2012 survey from the National Center for Health Statistics showed only 68 percent of young adults reporting that they ate breakfast regularly, a recent online survey conducted through Google Forms  on Facebook showed that out of 249 Athens young adults, roughly half reported that they eat breakfast daily.

The online survey also showed 18 percent reporting that they eat brunch every weekend.

One of the survey participants was Hailey Thomakins, a second year accounting major at the University of Georgia.

“Unfortunately, I don’t wake up early enough to eat breakfast before class every morning,” Thomakins said. “But I do go to brunch every Sunday with my family after church.”

Thomakins said she and her family do not always go to the same restaurant but South Kitchen + Bar is one of her favorite places.

“I usually get the vegetable omelet when I go to South,” Thomakins said. “It’s only $8 and it comes with cheese grits and a small salad. Seriously, you can’t beat the price.”

The vegetable omelet comes with zucchini, broccoli, mushrooms and most importantly, Vidalia onions because nothing is truly a Georgia dish without the Southern essential.

According to Zac Bennett, the general manager for South Kitchen + Bar, the average total number of people who come in for brunch every weekend is between 300 and 400.

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“This is a college town so we get a lot of college students and young professionals that come here,” Bennett said.

South Kitchen + Bar, which is located in the historic Georgian Hotel Building, was built in 1908, resulting in a variety of different businesses preceding it. In turn, Bennett also mentioned that many people from older generations come to look at the restaurant and reminisce about what it used to be when they were younger.

When asked about the potential competition between South Kitchen + Bar and other larger chains that serve breakfast all day, Bennett said he doesn’t feel like there is any “direct competition.”

“We offer a much different service whereas everything here is fresh made food and nothing is coming in from a truck or frozen,” Bennett said. “We even make our own ranch. People come here for the experience rather than just to get a waffle and eggs.”

Douglas resident, Jerrell Bailey, said that she, her friends and family are “foodies” who know good food, making South Kitchen + Bar a good contender.

“We loved everything about South Kitchen + Bar,” Bailey said. “Both the food and drinks were amazing, service was phenomenal and prices were very much in line with quality and quantity.”

No discussion of brunch in Athens is complete without the presence of Mama’s Boy’s Pancake Tuesdays and hearty egg scramblers.

Hungry visitors crowd into the cozy restaurant located in northeast Athens, anxiously awaiting the comfort food sizzling in the kitchen. Plates including breakfast tacos filled with eggs and beans, and Georgia peach French toast topped with powdered sugar are just a few of the treats patrons can enjoy.

Julia Andrejczuk, a third year student at the University of Georgia said she has been to Mama’s Boy on several occasions.

“The food is great and the coffee is even better,” Andrejczuk said. “The line is usually out the door since it’s a staple of Athens but overall it’s a great experience every time I’ve been there.”

When asked about her favorite dish from the menu, the answer came almost immediately: the vegetable and egg scrambler. Equipped with enough nutrients to make up for the vegetables you refused to eat at the dinner table as a kid, the meal comes scrambled with fresh spinach, onions, goat cheese, tomatoes and of course two eggs to seal the deal on your palette.

While many Athens locals are accustomed to the popularity of the brunch-style cuisines that Mama’s Boy is known for, other visitors to the historic town were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the food served.

Cindy Perelman, a Gainesville, Florida resident who stopped in Athens for a tennis match between the University of Georgia and the University of Florida, heard about the restaurant from someone who mentioned “cathead biscuits” were served there.

Thankfully, the use of feline body parts is not actually used in these biscuits, although that would be an interesting case for PETA. The name “cathead” comes from the fact that the biscuits are roughly the same size as a cat’s head.

“I’d never heard of them, but they sounded intriguing once he explained what they were,” Perelman said. “I arrived and there was a line, but, lucky for me, there was a seat at the counter.  The service was excellent and the food, including the coffee, was scrumptious.”

“My mom said when I was little the first thing that I looked at were people’s shoes,” Morgan Miller, owner of new boutique, the Indigo Child said in a recent interview. At just four years old, Miller’s mother knew that her passion for fashion was very dominant at a young age. Hipster with a twist of southern charm is the perfect way to describe the down to earth 25-year-old.

Deciding to move back to her hometown of Suwanee, Georgia after graduation, Miller actually ended up meeting the love of her life, Josh, during her junior year of college at the University of Alabama. She graduated from the university with a degree in fashion in December 2015 and her new fiancé with an accounting degree. He decided that he was either going to Georgia State or the University of Georgia to gain his CPA in the field.

Once finding out that Josh had been accepted into the university, Miller began her hunt in finding a space for her store in Athens. After driving down many streets they came up to Clayton Street, and Miller noticed an empty store with a lot of windows. Miller quickly jumped out the car while it was still moving, spelled out I-N-D-I-G-O, and knew that this was going to be the place where she began her own legacy. When asked how she felt about Athens and her new boutique she said, “Athens is a really awesome town that has a really cool vibe that I thought my vision would work here really well.”

Coming into an already thriving boutique culture can be difficult as a new store owner, and Miller definitely began to feel the heat when the grand opening was arriving. “I had doubts in my own head that I was going to have opening day and not one person walk in, but that was just in my own head,” Miller said.

The Indigo Child isn’t your average boutique, and she was afraid that somehow the vision in her head wouldn’t play out how she imagined it to be in the classic city. “This is something that I love and that I have always wanted,” she said explaining to the landlord as she began the renting process of the space. Miller had to prove to the landlord that her vision would work, and it’s something that she is still continuing to do today.

Before the grand opening of the boutique, the Instagram account had well over 5,000 and began the evolution of the store that has yet to slow down. The account now has over 12,000 followers from all over the United States. The boutique is located at 264 East Clayton St., and has been a booming success since opening. Since opening in October Miller’s sales goal was doubled by December.

Unlike your typical boutique in Downtown Athens with sorority styles and game day attire, the Indigo Child differentiates itself from the stereotype due to its edgy style. Most would say that every boutique carries the same “look”, but once you walk into the Indigo Child it is not exactly what you would expect to see from the all girly boutique culture in Athens. “My grandma, mom, and 15-year-old sister all shop here. It is a lifestyle boutique more than just clothes we have vintage in the back, guy stuff” Miller said when asked how she separates her boutiques from others.

A loose fitting shirt, joggers, sneakers, completed with a hat is the typical outfit you would expect to see Miller wearing as you enter the Indigo Child Boutique. Walking inside of the store to your left, you see a scatter of Jimmi Wiz bags that has become a very popular brand in the metro Atlanta area and quickly spread to Athens since the grand opening in October.

Jimmi Wiz bags are handmade from elk skin and deer antlers that are truly one of a kind bags. Miller’s store is the only one in Athens to carry the brand since her family and self are so close with Jimmi Wiz himself. After passing through the bags there are circular racks throughout the store with different labels such as “Sale” or “New Arrivals”, that attract the attention of customers immediately as they walk in. Clothing items are hung up on the walls, plus the inspirational quotes and vintage concert posters that add to the theme of a unique individual. “They are creative, innovative, ahead of their time, and that embodies what we try to do here. Outside of the box kind of thinking,” Miller said as she described what the Indigo Child meant to her.

The team Miller hired for her boutique are a very important aspect to her business, and when beginning her hiring process, she was not just going to have anyone working at her store. She decided to hire people that she knew and trusted, because she felt more comfortable since being a first time business owner.

MacKenzie Johnston is a student of UGA, family friend of the Millers, and employee of the Indigo Child Boutique. Johnston loves working at the store, describing it “Funky. Because everything in here is unique and it’s not stuff you’d see just in any store downtown.” Having a collection of products that customers of all ages can wear is very important in Athens, and the perfect way to isolate your boutique from the others. “There is a variety of products from vintage too new any type of person can come in here whether you want to spend $5 or $300,” Johnston said.

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Pitaya and Dress Up are two boutiques in Athens that are established and popular downtown. When beginning to compare the brands that the Indigo Child carries versus those two it was pretty obvious that the boutiques do not carry anything that the Indigo Child does. Dress Up is a private label store whom places a label on all of their items, and buys their products from whole sale marts. Meanwhile, Pitaya does carry various brands such as Blue Blush, Lush, and Double Zero. Hannah Terranova, customer of the Indigo Child, said “I love that you can get stuff that no one else has where as other stores have a lot of chain stuff, and you’re matching other people.”

Not only do customers come into the boutique to shop for clothing items, but the store also has a home goods selection that has been doing very well. Some even come into the store asking if there are designers who can come decorate their dorm rooms or apartments. Because of the positive feedback and success of the home good selection in the store the Miller’s decided to open up a second store dedicated to all home good products named the Indigo Home right next door to the boutique. It will carry a variety of gift, home, and dorm goods that will fulfill all the needs of those whom are looking for the perfect decorations for their new room.

Miller continues to keep her business outside of the box and extravagant, and with the upcoming spring game, G-Day, this weekend. She decided to have a pop up shop held at her store where customers can stop in and shop for the latest brands that she carries at the Indigo Child.

Don’t be deceived – the modest exterior of 271 West Hancock Ave is no indication of the vibrancy found inside.

The facade hints at the venue’s previous function, a garage with gaping windows that can be opened to let in a breeze during the warmer months and vintage Snow Tire Co. signs that remain as tribute to the former tenant, flanking the unadorned label of the current CREATURE COMFORTS BREWERY. But inside, bustling groups and dozing dogs cluster around picnic tables that are strewn about the cavernous interior. A lofted ceiling scatters the chattering of the crowds and disperses the acoustic guitar of a musician performing in the corner. Nearly everyone is sipping on a pint glass of beer; however, under Georgia’s restrictive brewery laws, none of them were allowed to directly purchase their beverage by itself.

Years of fighting against the laws of “the worst state in the country for craft brewing,” have finally paid off. On March 22, the Georgia General Assembly reformed the state’s current beer laws and passed Senate Bill 85, allowing breweries to sell alcohol directly to their customers for the first time since prohibition. “It really cannot be overstated how impactful these changes are to helping breweries connect better with consumers, to generate value for the breweries, to create jobs, and increase tourism,” Creature Comforts CEO Chris Herron wrote in an email praising the legislation’s ratification, which will go into effect on September 3.

Before the revisions, Georgia laws allowed local breweries only to sell beer to customers through the purchase of tour experiences, with an additional “souvenir” product at the end, a complicated process that was required only in Georgia. Creature Comforts has been one of the breweries campaigning alongside the Georgia Craft Brewers Guild to change that legislation. “We wanted to be part of a solution here, as opposed to running to somewhere where the grass was greener,” said Herron to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in January. “We approached Athens with the idea that we wanted to stay here, and that was it.”

Creature Comforts opened when David Stein, a University of Georgia graduate of 2006, returned to Athens in April 2013. Stein’s dream brewery came to life at the previous site of the Snow Tire Company. The decor is simple and modern but incorporates rustic elements remaining from its Snow Tire Co. phase. “We did a lot of cool adaptive reuse,” Stein said to the Atlanta-Journal Constitution in 2014, referencing the reclaimed wood that created the bar tops and the old tire racks that hang from the ceilings in the restrooms. “We wanted to keep the building as much the same as we could.”

The main attraction at Creature Comforts is the brewery tour, since up until recently it has been the only way to drink beer on site. Upon purchasing a tour, you receive a Creature Comforts glass and a bracelet with six tasting tabs, each redeemable for a 6-ounce sample of beer. An employee, usually bearing a beer in hand as well, casually guides you around a network of whirring metallic machines while explaining the fermentation and production processes. At the end of the tour, you can take 72-ounces of packaged beer with you as a “souvenir”. The last tasting tab is marked “Get Local” and serves as a 10 percent off coupon for various popular restaurants downtown. The tours run on Tuesdays and Thursdays 5-8 p.m., Fridays 5-10 p.m. and Saturdays 1-6 p.m. and cost $14, although they’re free on your birthday or discounted $2 with a local ID.

The brewery hosts private events for local businesses and organizations, but also arranges weekly community events.

Once a week on Curious Tuesdays, Creature Comforts hosts a local musician as a part of their Curious Music Series. Since the company has, “just been crazy busy lately,” according to packaging assistant Graham Jarboe, they have had to halt the production and weekly release of a special brew, a former attraction for Tuesday nights at the brewery.

Creature Comforts draws people in on Wednesdays by hosting the Athens Farmers Market. Visitors meander between stands set up by local farmers and artisans who proudly allocate samples, eager to discuss their homegrown products. “There’s a good crowd,” said Athens local Laura George. “It’s kind of cool, the mix of people that come.”

These weekly events not only attract customers to the brewery on typically slow weekdays, but also cultivate a sense of community. “We try to put on really good events and be involved in our local community. I think that sort of dedication helps create a fan base almost so even people who aren’t really into craft beer maybe are into Creature Comforts at least because they like to support something local,” said Jarboe.

Regardless of community involvement, the majority of the brewery’s enthusiasts are in it for their creative and diverse selection of beer. Creature Comforts makes unique variations of classic brew styles, ranging from fruity, hoppy IPAs like Tropicalia to sweet, creamy milk porters like Koko Buni.

Click here to take a quiz to see what kind of Creature Comforts brew you are.

Although the escalating popularity of craft beer contributed to Creature Comforts’ growth in popularity, it was cultivated only by the communities of Athens and Atlanta. “It’s just awesome how those two communities have been in supporting the brand, and we remain committed to serving them,” said Herron to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in January. To give back, the brewery has a local charity initiative called Get Comfortable that, “helps people in need get more comfortable.” All of the proceeds from the sales of Get Comfortable IPA, Get Comfortable merchandise and family-friendly tours on Wednesdays are donated to specified local nonprofit organizations such as Action Ministries, Athens Area Homeless Shelter and The Ark. As an additional incentive to doing good, if you bring in an item to donate, they will take $2 off your tour price. “I think it’s awesome that a brewery, something so cool and hip in Athens, would want to get involved and help out local organizations and people,” said Maddie Swab, a volunteer with Action Ministries.

Creature Comforts has stimulated economic growth in Athens-Clarke County, and in turn, the local government has awarded it a $475,000 development fund to help finance a second location in the Southern Mill complex off North Chase Street. The brewery is planning on refurnishing and reusing some of the original components of the historic building, similar to how they incorporated reclaimed wood from the Snow Tire Company. “There’s a lot of old pieces of that building…that we definitely want to preserve if we can,” Jarboe said. Construction will begin in May 2017, and the opening date is projected to be in October of the same year.

Within the next five years, Creature Comforts is planning to create 25 full-time jobs and about 20 part-time jobs in order to staff the Southern Mill location. The new venue will also greatly increase the quantity of all of its beers; the additional 50,000 barrels will bring total production to 78,000 barrels, an amount that is nearly 20 times the designed capacity of the original downtown brewery. The production of Tropicalia alone will almost double, reaching about 25,000 barrels, a quantity that will still barely meet its high demand. Seasonal beers Koko Buni and Cosmik Debris have popularities that far surpass their quantities, their scarcity making them seem more like limited release brews; however, the second brewery will provide enough capacity to ensure these fan favorites last the entire season.

“We are extremely excited to have an opportunity to stay and grow our business here in Athens, a city we love,” Herron said in a news release. “We are grateful for the cooperation and assistance of the Athens-Clarke County government on this project. We look forward to building another brewery this community will be proud of.”

Click here to view a photo gallery of Creature Comforts beer taken by fans.

The 2016 presidential election created a new wave of politically active youth whose growing awareness turned into protests and rallies.

An unprecedented number of millennial voters participated in the election.

An estimated 24 million people ages 18 to 29 voted, according to a poll by Tufts University, which was higher than the previous millennial voter turnouts for the November 2012 and 2014 elections.

In Athens, GA specifically, activism has become a trend with rallies and protests surrounding the University of Georgia’s Arch and causes communal gatherings in the streets of downtown.

Osama Mor, a student at UGA, said that his own experience as a Muslim American in a xenophobic society is what led him to start speaking out for the rights of his community and spearheading organizations like the Students for Justice in Palestine.

Mor is just one of the many minority students who have felt the after effects of the recent presidential election and believe speaking out is the only way to get their opinions heard.

Adel Amer, imam of the local mosque in Athens and lecturer at UGA, thinks that the growing political awareness will have a positive impact on society because he knows so many Americans are hungry for knowledge about different faiths and minority groups.

He believes that interest must be met with openness and transparency, which is exactly what happened when he held an open house for the Islamic Center in Athens where over 1,600 people showed up to learn about the faith of Islam.

Groups like Athens for Everyone, a grassroots organization that holds demonstrations and provides information about local politics to the people of Athens, have catered to the growing activism.

Chris Dowd, the operations coordinator for Athens for Everyone, said that the people of Athens are an underrepresented population who have a lot of interest in making sure their politicians have their best interests at heart, which is why the organization makes brochures to keep the town updated on local policy.

According to a poll by civicyouth.org, around 30 percent of both millennial Clinton and Trump supporters wanted to become more politically active after the election, although that percentage is concentrated with more liberals than conservatives.

Many protests on both sides of the political spectrum have been bringing out new, young students and community members in the Athens area, but loud protests are not the only way to voice an opinion.

Silent protests are also starting to gain momentum.

According to Mor, there have been prayer vigils for various minority groups that have felt especially targeted after the election, where people stand in solidarity to show unity and peace rather than the perceived anger seen at some demonstrations.

Whether chanting or praying, activism is on the rise and is gaining a lot of support.

Amer said that the future for activism is strong because of the youth that are starting to speak out and use their voices to create change for themselves and for the minority groups who need an ally in times of oppression.

Athens has always been a political hub because of the history of protests by UGA students and other millennials and now it is just one example of the overall growing political attitude in the youth of our society.

Athens Protest Thinglink

There is a term in theater, and more specifically improvisation, when a joke is made more than once and in reference to itself. This kind of joke is called a “callback.” In the manner of a callback, a certain phrase was bellowed by a professor in a class at the University of Georgia on Monday, April 10: “I said contemporary!”

Professor Kristin Kundert was presiding over an in-class exercise for undergraduate acting students in the Department of Theatre and Film Studies. The students were told to prepare a contemporary monologue and two students missed the memo. Kundert caught them performing monologues by William Shakespeare and made her disapproval thoroughly known. “She really pushes. She wants you to do well,” said second year theater major Ellen Everitt.

Kundert is an associate professor at the University of Georgia, but her lectures are anything but typically academic. Gesturing with passion and enthusiasm, Kundert stands as a portrait of the stereotype of a liberal arts professor who is deeply and outspokenly liberal. Referencing her resounding laugh, vibrant and bold fashion, and the unencumbered willingness to speak her mind, students testify to Kundert’s ability to welcome, comfort and encourage students within the department. Her style is bright and brash. “That laugh is pretty iconic,” said Everitt.

“She’s got a fire in her,” said undergraduate theater major Anthony Nash, who has had the experience of both being in one of her classes as well as being a cast member in “A Behanding in Spokane,” a show that she directed for the department.  Lovingly referring to her as “Pussy Mama,” a name originating from a monologue Kundert performed for her Theatre 3500 class in the fall of 2014, Nash points out her nurturing and “fiery” approach to guiding students in theater. “There’s a very grounded fire to her and I think that is obviously reflected in her clothing.”

Circling the room as the students simultaneously perform their monologues for each other in pairs lined up lengthwise across the room, Kundert’s flared pants move with an impressive fluidity. They are a lighter shade of the same purple of her flared-arms top and her shoes are bedazzled and flowery.

She pauses occasionally to lean in, squinting, and listen to a student’s performance. “You need to cut it, cut it, cut it,” she says to students whose monologues she can tell are too long. Between these suggestions of shortening are shouts of “I said contemporary!”

Kundert’s classroom is simple, understated and usually too hot or too cold. (One student’s first experience with Kundert was seeing her loudly argue with an air conditioning repairman.) Kundert works in a classroom built to accentuate the creativity and craft of the students she trains. In the basement of the Fine Arts Building, room 115 features bare walls, four storage closets for props and desk chairs that sit on elevated platforms resembling the house of a theater – perfect for viewing students’ work.

Kundert bases most of her acting training in a technique known as the Meisner technique, which, in its early stages, usually resembles the blandness of the classroom in which it is being taught. The Meisner technique was developed in the middle of the 20^th century and remains to this day a popular and well-liked technique for actor training. All about repetition and deep connection with a scene partner, the Meisner technique is Kundert’s go-to for coaching undergraduate and graduate students alike in the field of acting for the stage. “She’s really impulsive and goes with her gut instincts and I think that’s because of her training in Meisner,” Everitt said of Kundert.

Lukas Woodyard, a second year theater major from Warner Robins, Georgia, said he specifically sought Kundert out as his professor for his first acting class because of her connection to the Meisner technique. Woodyard took Kundert’s Meisner course during the 2016 Maymester and said her training in the technique is evident and “life-changing.” Kundert sings the technique’s praises because of its ability to emotionally affect and move actors and better their ability to act in the moment and under pressure. The most common exercise using the Meisner technique is a partner-based exercise in which each partner makes an observation about the other and the other must repeat, verbatim, that observation. Though this is often a boring process at first, Woodyard said that the students in the class had “severe emotional reactions” by the time the course ended.

Having been a professor for many years, Kundert deals with resentment for the slow and cautious nature of authority tackling and solving problems in academia. “Who’s in charge, how they operate, blah blah blah,” Kundert said exasperatedly, “it’s a waste of time and it gets in the way of what you have to do.” Despite this, in five years, she still sees herself working as a professor. “Teaching is in my blood.”

It is commonly believed, Kundert notes, that an education in the fine arts isn’t lucrative and won’t get you far. “I think they’re fools,” Kundert said of those who don’t believe a degree in theater is worthwhile. “When you’re a theater artist, you have a better understanding of the human condition and that’s going to be core to any career anywhere,” said Kundert.

“I think everyone in my family thought I was too smart to do theater,” said Kundert. Because of this, Kundert started college at the State University of New York at New Paltz as a double major: theater and biology. However, after taking a semester away from theater to focus solely on biology, Kundert realized that she couldn’t live without it. She dropped her double major and focused entirely on theater thereafter, graduating in 1987. Though she never regrets her choice to do theater, she regrets having given up the opportunity to do anything else. “A doctor can go live wherever they want,” she said. “In academia, you can’t necessarily pick where you want to live.”

Kundert claims that more businesses are hiring fine arts majors than they are business majors. This is a difficult statistic to quantify, but the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that from 2014 to 2024, employment in business-related fields will increase by 8.4 percent, and employment in arts and entertainment fields will increase by 4.1 percent. Though it can’t be determined what training these employees will receive, it is true that the business world will gain more employees than the arts. This projected trend has been reflected in enrollment at the University of Georgia over the past decade. From 2006 to 2016, total enrollment in the arts and sciences has decreased by 35 percent. Enrollment in business has increased by 224 percent.

Growing up in Platteville, Wisconsin, Kundert was always interested in performance and direction. When she was young, she would write, direct and star in short plays with her sisters. These “little kid plays” were performed for relatives whenever they visited. “It cracks me up now because I think, ‘Oh my god, if I had to watch it, I would just – oh lord,’” said Kundert.

“The two jokes in my family were that I grew up in a ‘Care Bear’ family, or we were the ‘Little House on the Prairie,’” Kundert said of her childhood, growing up with her two younger sisters. “Everybody was good, nobody got into trouble, nobody did anything wrong, everyone was perfect.” Through stuttering laughter, Kundert explains that her “dominant personality” was likely why she and her siblings were always referred to as “Kristin and the girls.”

Today, Kundert is a divorced mother to two sons, Kenlee and Josh. When asked what about her is absolutely crucial to know, Kundert said the fact that she is a mother has colored many of her life experiences. “It’s really hard, and I think because of my ‘Care Bear’ family, there were a lot of things about it that I wasn’t prepared for. I just didn’t get a lot of things that were normal,” Kundert said. Described by one student as an “earth mother,” Kundert’s claim that this life experience has bettered her interactions with students has been substantiated in every student interview I conducted.

The “Care Bear” “Little House on the Prairie” relationship Kundert enjoyed in her childhood has been complicated a bit in the recent years, due to distance, the death of her father when she was 25 and clashing political views. Kundert’s mother and sister Kara are more conservative, religiously and politically, than Kundert, and because of that, there are things they “just can’t” talk about.

Kundert’s politics have also played a prominent role in her personal and professional career at Georgia. A staunch opponent of the Campus Carry bill, which would allow those in possession of a concealed firearms permit to carry their firearms on a Georgia university campus, Kundert has participated in protests at the Arch and helped to distribute T-shirts that read “Keep the G Gun-Free!” Touting a baby blue fringe purse with a pastel pink “Fuck Paul Ryan” button pinned neatly to one of the handles, Kundert says she will refuse to let anyone carrying a gun into her classroom if the bill becomes law. “I guess I’ll get arrested, ‘cause if someone comes into my classroom with a gun, I’m going tell them to leave. They could go and have me arrested and I could go to jail.” Some students expressed concerns that these intense political opinions can make Kundert seem “vocal to the point of bullying.” Citing Kundert’s “magmatic” tendencies, one student claimed that Kundert initially “scared the shit out of [them].”

It’s not all teaching and politics for this expressive professor. A big fan of sports, Kundert enjoys crocheting as she watches soccer and basketball games. Though her March Madness prediction bracket is “totally fried” this year, Kundert still uses her season tickets to attend every Georgia Bulldogs basketball game. Aside from crocheting and basketball, Kundert says that most of her time is taken up by her job.

When asked what she wants to say to the world, Kundert paused for a few seconds and confidently said, “Stop letting God get in the way of loving each other.”