1: Why Teaching Was My Calling

Do not become teachers in large numbers … since you know that we who are teachers will incur a stricter judgment. For we all stumble in many ways. (James 3:1, 2a NASB)

“Teachers have a hard row to hoe.”

“Those who can’t do, teach.”

“The last thing I ever wanted to do was become a teacher.”

Probably every college professor at one point or another has wrestled with these types of statements, from Biblical wisdom reminding us of our level of accountability, to various societal perceptions of the role of teacher. Yet faculty who invest in their students are readily willing to express why they would spend a significant part of their lives teaching at a small primarily undergraduate institution, for fewer material rewards than they might receive in other professions.

Not all professors think of teaching as a specific calling. Some do. Some cite teaching as their spiritual gift. Not all professors were straight “A” students, not all professors have an extraordinarily high IQ, and not all professors are extroverts. Not all professors initially ever imagined themselves teaching in a college-level classroom, or had friends who would have imagined them teaching in a college-level classroom. Some professors recall being nudged or recruited (or we might even say “called”) into teaching at Huntington University by others in the profession.

For some professors, the “calling,” or recruitment to teach, was a process of “becoming.” Recruitment or mentoring by an acquaintance, or by a former professor, was particularly influential in that process of becoming.

Let’s start out with the story of Anita Wickersham, associate professor of accounting and business. Through the casual comings and goings of Huntington town life during a work day, we can almost imagine the similarities in Anita’s story to Jesus’ calling of some of the disciples in the town life depicted in the Gospels. Anita describes some of the interactions that led to her initial decision to go into teaching.

I was at a CPA firm for about four years, and I was starting to get a little restless with that. It seemed a little repetitive to me. I remember it was a really nice summer day, and I was on my lunch break. I was walking in beautiful downtown Huntington, and I met one of my former faculty advisors, Professor Barlow. He asked me how I was doing, and I kind of gave the standard answer, you know, “Everything’s fine.”

He said, “Well, that’s too bad,” which is kind of a strange response.

Then I said, “Well, you know, actually I’m starting to get a little bored here.”

We talked a little bit more, and, you know, that was sort of that. A couple days later, I got a call from the Academic Dean Jerry Smith asking if I would be interested in a teaching position, because they had one opening up in the business department.

So, I said, “Well yes, go ahead and send an application,” and I thought about it and prayed about it, and it seemed like there were a lot of things about teaching that were going to satisfy what I was missing in public accounting. Anyway, so, here I am still!

Anita goes on to describe the career-long joys which come with college teaching. It’s striking how many times she uses the word “enjoy” to describe her calling, although descriptions of the actual workload come in a later chapter.

You are using the academic part that you love, but in a different way. One of the things that I thought I found confining about CPA firm is that you’re always watching how much time you spend doing something, because you’re billing your clients and you have to make sure that that bill is not outrageous. You’re trying to be as efficient as possible, and there may be, you know, rabbit holes you’d like to run down but you can’t. Then when you get into academic life, you can do as much of that as you want to. It’s great because you can go off on those tangents whenever