Why We Teach: Wendell Crow

Teaching permeates the Crow blood. Wendell Crow's grandmother taught in a rural school, his mother was a teacher, both his brother and sister were teachers, they all married teachers, and even his cousin Sheryl – yes, that Sheryl Crow – was a teacher before she went on to become better known as a rock star.

“Once I began teaching, I never looked back,” Crow says. “I never doubted that teaching was an honorable, fulfilling profession.” As department chair in communications, Crow is required to teach at least one class. “But I always think of myself as a teacher first, an administrator second.”

Crow began teaching at Little Rock Central High School in 1965, shortly after it was the focus of the nation's integration crisis. But it was his training in editing, printing and graphics on the family's newspaper that landed him his first lecturing position as a master's student at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.

“I always knew that the professional education I received from our family business would make all the difference.”

That streak of Midwest practicality shines forth in Crow's lectures, which he calls eclectic, and is manifest in his greatest job satisfaction, which he said is “learning that a student has just landed a first real job based on what I taught them. I hope that some of my lessons about how to deal with people professionally, respectfully and ethically will stay with them throughout their careers.”

Teaching, Crow says, helps keep him in touch with what students think and need. “I always end up marveling at how well they manage their lives in these times to make it through to graduation.” He says he is especially pleased that Fullerton is a refuge for disadvantaged students who, “in some cases, may be breaking ground educationally for their families and who may be laboring under huge burdens to be here. I sense that they know they can take sanctuary here and survive.”

After being at Cal State Fullerton since 1977, Crow will retire next summer. “But I will miss this place and what I've been able to do here,” he says. “Collegiality isn't an abstract notion here; people care about this place and about each other, and I always feel part of something important.”

Interview: Belinda Karge »