This Valentine’s Day, we’re highlighting a professor couple, Dr. Sarah Berry and Dr. Matthew Berry, who are beloved by all who take their classes. Many students have been impacted by their example of friendship in marriage.
J.C.: How did you both meet?
S.B.: We went to Coppell High School. Mr. Dixon’s world history class in 10th grade?
M.B.: Yeah, 10th grade, third day because I had been going to the wrong class.
S.B.: I’m sitting at my desk and this guy stumbles into class with football sweats and is like “Is this AP U.S. world history?” and Mr. Dixon says, “Yeah? Who are you? Do you have the book?” And this guy says “What book?” and he goes and sits in the back of the class, puts his head down, and falls asleep. laughs Yeah he didn’t make a big impression on me. But we started dating in 11th grade because we were in so many classes together. Why were we in so many classes junior year, Mr. Doctor Berry?
M.B.: So I had developed a crush on her and I went to my advisor and I told her, “I have a crush on a girl, Will you get me into all of her classes?” I’m sure this was some kind of violation of privacy, but yeah, she put me in all her classes.
S.B.: And despite you ruining my life in physics, I was still willing to be friends with you.
M.B.: Especially in English class. One Valentine’s Day, I got a Valentine’s for her and all of her friends and her friends told her “He doesn’t care about us, he just wanted to give you a Valentine.” And then, not too long after that, I finally got the courage to ask her out. We drove in my mom’s minivan and saw “The Aviator.” Not the most romantic choice I could have made, it was pretty much a disaster.
S.B.: But somehow we bounced back.
M.B.: We started dating after that somehow. S.B.: He was not a complete loser, just presented as a loser. And in that English class, he wrote up all these really funny speeches and was very clever.
M.B.: We didn’t hang out at school before that, but were like friends in school, chatting on Aim. Yeah there was a long process of me becoming a real person [before we started dating] because I had no plans of going to college. I did not do particularly well in school until I started wanting to impress her and start trying harder in classes. You know, doing homework and not sleeping in class and stuff like that.
S.B: So he had a kind of glow-up. But also, we like to get to know each other slowly.
J.C.: And so what did you all do after college?
S.B.: We got married right after college, like July of the summer after we graduated from college.
M.B.: Yeah, we were one of those people that were engaged our senior year.
S.B.: Then we were trying to apply to get into programs at the same school or colleges in the same city. And we’ve done that for the last 14 years.
J.C.: How is it like working with each other?
M.B.: Well she’s on a different floor…
S.B.: The floor with the bathroom! So everybody’s gonna come up here. But yeah it’s kind of fun, like to call downstairs.
M.B.: “Did you bring lunch?” “Yeah.” “Can I have some?”
S.B.: Exactly, he didn’t eat his breakfast this morning so I grabbed it on the way out and brought it. Yeah, little stuff like that.
M.B.: It just makes it so much easier with little kids. It’s a job like any other in terms of flexibility. It’s the fact that we can both do this that makes raising little kids so much easier. And if I’m struggling with something, with teaching, like he’s gonna know basically what my students are like and what the student body is. And to teach here with old friends and new friends, people we’ve known for a long time and people we have gotten to know over the last three or four years.
J.C.: What dating advice would you give to UD Students?
M.B.: Don’t see “The Aviator.” laughs No, one piece of advice is, especially for guys, don’t be afraid to ask out just a girl from class. There’s a big expectation that you’re friends first but like for us, we weren’t, we just talked in class, or with groups of friends. We did not hang out with each other outside of school. Yeah, ask somebody out that you know, but aren’t close friends with.
S.B.: I think my advice would be to pick someone [who is] open to being corrected, open to criticism. Maybe not criticism from you just yet but you want somebody open to getting better as a person and looking for ways to get better.