A decade after seeing Lindsey Wilson for the first time, Education chair David Moffett has come full-circle to achieve his ultimate goal of coming here to teach. From raising two daughters to leading in the corporate world and teaching high school social studies, he’s followed many dreams. Now, his passion is helping other people find their own.

In the year 1966, in an elementary school in the small town of Pendleton, Indiana, two fourth-grade students were locked in battle. A young David Moffett-who is now a professor and chair of the Lindsey Wilson College (LWC) Education department-had stood strong throughout the competition, watching as his adversaries stumbled, stuttered, and misspoke. Now there was only one person left to beat, and victory would belong to him. But there was a slight problem: he was infatuated with this final opponent.

Would he use this moment to his advantage, let the girl win, get her to like him? Or would he put love on hold to crush this last adversary? Dr. Moffett chose the latter option and became the fourth grade spelling bee champion. Proof of this victory, and the driving force behind it, stands at the top of a shelf in Moffett’s office, among old awards for basketball, football, and tennis.

“I liked her a lot,” Moffett said of the girl he had to defeat. “But when I saw the trophy... I really wanted it.”

His entire life, Moffett has worked hard to achieve his dreams. At the age of 15, he made the decision to leave his family’s farm and attend the Kentucky Military Institute (KMI). For him, it wasn’t about the military or the war.

“I wasn’t satisfied with the education I was getting where I was,” he explained. “And I wanted that structure and discipline I knew I’d get there.”

Growing up on a farm raising and showing cattle and being an active member of FFA and the 4-H Club, many people assumed Moffett was headed down a path in the agricultural field.

“I think my parents were a bit surprised that I chose KMI.” He said. “But they were supportive.”

At KMI, he was one of just 88 students in grades 6-12. This meant that they only had 10 to 12 kids in each class, and a community was formed from the close relationships the students and teachers had with one another, as “you sure got to know each other well”.

While Moffett came from Indiana, most of the kids were from Kentucky. Although his family has roots in Kentucky, with some of his ancestors even riding with Morgan’s Raid through and around the state in the Civil War, this was his first personal encounter with the people and the culture.

“They were really good people, whether they were troublemakers or not,” Moffett said. “And that’s one of the ways I knew I wanted to live in this part of the country.”

From such a young age, he knew he wanted to settle down in Kentucky, and 10 years ago, upon a visit to Lindsey Wilson to interview for a position, he knew that this college was exactly where he wanted to be.

Back then, after that long-ago interview, Moffett recalls, “I knew at the time it wasn’t my time. I needed to go be a chair at other places and an associate dean and coordinate a couple of doctoral programs. Pay my dues, if you will.”

Even though he wasn’t meant to be at Lindsey that year, he made it his personal quest, a promise to himself, to return. He even kept the pencil that the academic dean at the time gave him, and keeps it in a coffee mug on his desk at home.“I just fell in love with the place ten years ago and wanted to make my way back. And so my dream came true this past July 1, when I began.”

When he came here a decade back, there was no sports park or wellness center. There was no nursing building. There was no Hodge, and they were just starting to lay the bricks for the Jim and Helen Fugitte Science Center.

Amidst these many changes, one thing that he feels has remained unwavering is the good character of the students. Compared to students at colleges where he’s worked in Florida, Georgia, and Texas, Moffett says the people here are the most respectful and courteous he’s ever seen. From the moment he arrived in Columbia during the summer and three students kindly helped him unload his truck and trailer and bring everything into his new house, he has been consistently impressed by the kindness, good manners, and polite attitudes that flow around campus.

Whenever Moffett himself was a college student, he never imagined that he would end up in the education field. He started out in accounting because he likes numbers, but it was too introverted for him. He ended up with a major in journalism, and a minor in history. He got his Master’s at 23 in Public Relations and Philosophy, and from there worked as a corporate recruiter for seven years.

The corporate world treated him well, but when it came down to “you can do whatever you want to do, what do you want to do?”, he decided to follow his love for history, and went back to school to get certified to teach high school social studies and journalism.

“In my mind,” Moffet said, “three good reasons to teach were June, July, and August.” He had recently had his first daughter, and thought that going from the corporate world into education would leave more time to spend with her. It didn’t look like it was much work, since most of his old teachers didn’t seem to do a whole lot, but when he got into it, he said, he realized that "a good teacher works two full-time jobs: teaching all day and prepping and planning and assessing at night."

“But once I was in it, I realized how much needed to be done to make it better. So my journey went from being selfish to selfless and I dedicated myself to changing P-12 education one future teacher at a time.”

Over the 25 years he’s spent as an educator, he’s seen many changes. Standards emerged where there once was nothing, and now they serve as guidelines for schools and teachers to optimize the education of students. Internally, the teachers have been held more accountable for being experts in their subject area and for truly loving learning and being lifelong learners.

“One of the biggest changes is teachers have had to transform themselves,” Moffett explained, “and that transformation has caused them to be able to model possibilities of transformation for their students.”

To Moffett, being a lifelong learner is one of the most important attributes a person can have, especially if they are considering becoming a teacher. Being lifelong learners and having a love of learning will model that to their students, and instill lifelong learning and a love of learning inside them as well. With a love of learning, Moffett says, people can find and follow their passion.

“We all must find our passion,” he explained, “and everybody has it within themselves to find it, they just need to sample different pints of knowledge to find what it is.”

That’s the purpose of their introductory education course, to allow students who think they want to be teachers, aren’t sure what they want to do, or definitely don’t want to become an educator and are only taking the course as an elective, to explore their options and “get a feel” as to whether or not this is where their interest lies.

Dr. Moffett sees himself in many students. He sees himself in those who are undecided, who know what they don’t want to do but not what they do want to do, and sometimes they don’t believe him when he says there was a point in his life where he didn’t want to be an educator either. He also sees himself in those who recognize the things that need to be done, and who strive to go out and do them, to, as Gandhi said, be the change they wish to see in the world.

Regardless of their intended career path, Moffett supports everyone on their quest to discover and pursue their interests. “I want everybody to follow their passion.” he said. “If you follow your passion, everything else takes care of itself.”

As the chair of the education department, of course, he is delighted when someone’s passion leads them to become a teacher. He is continually inspired by those who, as college students, know that the education system is good, but also see the ways it could be better and work to be "agents of change".

He hopes that his students remember him as a person just like them, who cared and truly wanted them to be the best that they could be. And he hopes that they know how much he wants them to dedicate themselves to making a difference in the lives of their students.

Dr. Moffett has had many accomplishments throughout his life. He’s saved a college’s education program (and the institution itself) from being shut down due to failed accreditations, he’s sponsored a high school recycling program that won every possible citizen award in the state of Indiana, he’s raised two wonderful daughters, and he’s finally achieved his dream of working at Lindsey. But his ultimate accomplishments have come through in the lives of his students, who enter P-12 schools ready to teach the future generation.

On a shelf in Moffett’s cozy office is a letter written in crayon, in what looks like the shaky hand of a child. “I want to be like Dr. Moffett when I grow up,” says the letter, signed Kate. Kate was a teacher education student who gave the letter to Dr. Moffett as a kind joke.

Last he heard, she was teaching successfully in Florida.

“I’ve been real blessed, with more blessings to come. It’s priceless,” said Moffett as he looked at that framed piece of paper, “the rewards we get from students when they go out and make a difference.”

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