Always a Maker at Heart

By: Veronica Lynagh, VP of Strategic Initiatives, International Center for Creativity

Professor Jay Kinsinger, founder and owner of Sojourn Cyclery (hand-made wooden bicycle frames), teaches Innovative Media Systems, Surface Development 1, and Surface Development 2 to students in the Industrial and Innovative Design program at the International Center for Creativity in Dublin, Ohio.

His students say they love his courses because he “has the ability to apply the things we’ve learned only in theory.” Professor Kinsinger has been teaching at Cedarville for 22 years. He is an Associate Professor of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering, has an M.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Wright State University, a B.S. in Manufacturing Engineering Technology from University of Dayton, a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering Technology from University of Dayton and an A.S. in Mechanical Engineering Technology from Sinclair Community College, yet this humble and passionate teacher is a self- proclaimed “accidental academic.”

Kinsinger describes his childhood home as very hands on. His father was a shop teacher and mother an upholsterer. “I was surrounded by a creative environment,” he says. “There was never a loss of projects thrown our way.” He was working in a bicycle shop by age 14, was into the Indy Scene, and declares ironically “academics just wasn’t my thing.” Kinsinger had planned on being in the motor sports world and not going down the college track, so when he graduated in 79’ amidst a recession and found himself as a Tool and Dye apprentice at a local machine shop, he was thrilled and said he fit right in. Then he met Jim.

Jim was a believer, and the other men in the shop referred to him as a “Jesus Freak”. But both Jay and Jim shared a love for pranks, and Kinsinger describes his new-found friend as a light in a dark place. He even coined a phrase and referred to it as “practical joke evangelism”! Nostalgically Jay quoted 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone, the new is here!” saying, “my life changed in that machine shop.”

Jay started his academic journey with evening classes and became a technician at GE. Laughing he tells me that the FAA requires that engines can sustain a bird getting sucked into it, and so he was the bird tester at GE. He went on to become a senior lab technician at University of Dayton and advanced his degree into a Bachelors. He began working on designing prosthetic components at Ohio Willow Wood which moved his family to Cedarville where he quickly joined Grace Baptist Church. Cedarville wanted to start teaching 3D computer designing, and he was already using CAD software in his prosthetic designs. So Kinsinger began teaching in the evenings, pursuing a master’s degree, working during the day, and never ceasing on his love of bicycles and riding. Today he teaches a workshop for cyclists that want to build their own wooden bikes. Cyclists from companies like Apple have sought out his course, and he has remained friends with many that he’s crossed paths with. This past year his company, Sojourn

Cyclery was featured in the Rolls Royce Yearbook and, Covid permitting, he and his wife will head to the Rolls Royce Gala in London in the fall to reconnect with some of those very friends that have been brought into his proverbial “bike” path.

For 22 years Kinsinger has been teaching at Cedarville, and as he describes the courses he teaches and the students, it is no surprise when he says, “and I still love it.” While Kinsinger enthusiastically describes the Contemporary Manufacturing Processes course at Cedarville, he also says, “at my heart of hearts I’m a maker. I like to use wood, metal, and ceramics. I just really enjoy making things, and I think I bring those elements to the ICC.” Kinsinger seems to have a knack for teaching the engineering students on the main campus at Cedarville about creativity and the ICC students about makeability, bringing each peer group a unique perspective and forming a better balance between their knowledge and skills.

At the close of our time together, I asked this “accidental academic” what he loved most about teaching. Humbly pausing to consider, he said, “it’s getting to see the light bulbs turn on and that the students had figured it out, seeing them grow in their families, careers, in their faith, and seeing them give back, that’s what I love most about teaching.”

To reach out to Professor Kinsinger or to learn more about the courses he teaches or his company, Sojourn Cyclery, you may contact him at: jay@sojourn-cyclery.com