For nearly 20 years, Eric Hazell has called the university his second home.
He began as a a graduate student studying early colonial American history, moved through various jobs in the history and English departments, and finally landed a spot in the line-up as an adjunct professor in the English department’s Professional Writing Program.
Inject all those years of experience with a teaching style colored heavily with pop culture references, a sarcastic sense of humor and a smattering of life lessons, and you’ve got Hazell.
“Any questions? Comments? Philosophical musings? You know, I haven’t got a philosophical musing all summer,” Hazell said. Before that snappy quip came a quote from The Simpsons (Mr. Burns’ “Excellent!”) and the future brought a dirty joke about a man, a pint of whiskey, a bear and a prostitute (“You’re starting to yawn and get restless on me, so we’re gonna talk about sex for a minute”). Interspersed between everything were stories about Hazell and his family, such as one incident with his daughter that proved he’s the “best father that ever was.”
But after spending two decades trying to keep his students as interested in his class as he is in teaching, the Oklahoma native is moving on. His wife is taking a job in Austin, Texas, and though Hazell will continue to teach in Texas, both at Austin Community College and as an adjunct at the University of Texas, this university will always hold a place in his memory, he said.
“I’m proud to be a part of this school,” he said. “I don’t think there’s a lot of jobs where you regularly have people say, ‘You really did a good job. I’m a lot better now than I was before.’ I like to read a good teacher evaluation.”
Hazell’s motto is to mix humor and knowledge to keep kids engaged. With college students, one of the best ways to capture their attention is with a joke – and Hazell always knows when to make it count, he said.
“There are different points in class when you can tell people are nodding off,” he added. “I try to make the next thing I say after a joke important.”
And humor isn’t the only way Hazell tries to relate to his students – every semester he’s taught, he devotes one day to music, bringing in guitar and playing both songs he’s written and student requests.
When Hazell brings out the guitar, he said, students often request classic rock such as Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, and also seem to enjoy both his compositions and pieces he performs by other musicians, such as the Tragically Hip. And for Hazell, who has been playing the guitar for 28 years, it’s just fun.
“The nice thing is, they can’t get up and leave,” he said with a wry grin. “You play in a bar, and you’re lucky if 25 percent of the people there are listening to you. It’s the best audience a musician could ever have.”
But for Hazell, teaching students isn’t just synonymous with entertaining them, he said. Telling them stories and giving them life advice is his way to not only get them to remember what he’s teaching them, but to connect to them on a more human level, he said.
“I tell stories; it’s a proven method of getting people to remember,” he said. “I can explain something in one minute, but I can tell a story in five minutes. And I like telling stories. … I don’t know if I want to call them life lessons or anything, but people listen to that. Stuff like that is in some ways more real life than writing a paragraph.”
Though his stories may sometimes seem outlandish, Hazell said, they are often true – or, at least, a version of the truth.
“Every one I tell is to illustrate something. They’re not always about ENGL393 or something, but they’re always told for a reason. “
So on Monday night, after impersonating Mr. Burns, explaining his grading method of handing out A-/B+ and B+/A- grades, and giving the men in his class dating advice, it was time for Hazell to let one of his final classes at the university go for the night.
“I know all your names, I’ll never see you again,” Hazell said. “So it goes.”
And so he goes, too.
roxanadbk@gmail.com
