Sitting Down with Buddy Howell

Moving to college is, in simple terms, difficult. For some, it may be the first time they have to move away from family, and for others, it may be the pursuit of higher education that makes the move especially nerve-inducing. It could also be the loss of close friends that are going separate ways, a concept that always seems to present itself when one is unprepared. For some students, it was leaving their pets at home that made them most worried. Regardless, all of the different reasons contribute to one unavoidable truth: change is inevitable. However, how does an incoming student deal with said change?

Enter Dr. Buddy Howell, an advanced instructor within the Virginia Tech School of Communication. Howell has been radicalizing the freshman adjustment process by catering to freshmen through the COMM 1004 class “First-Semester Experience in Communication.” Meeting once a week, the class is stylistically designed towards a singular goal: community. Howell achieves this goal by pursuing multiple avenues: whether it be panels, group discussions, or quality time with our Hokie Undergraduate Groups (affectionately called HUGs), the emphasis on community is prevalent. Now having attended meetings for seven sessions, I can confidently say that the class has made one of the most remarkable impacts towards my stay at Virginia Tech thus far. I had the opportunity to sit down with the professor to ask him how the class came to be, his background, and how the course continues to radically change what it means to be a student at Virginia Tech. 

When you first walk into his office, nestled in the corner of the first floor in Shanks Hall, you can tell the professor exudes knowledge. The room itself speaks volumes on Howell’s experiences both as a professor and an individual, displaying some of his interests and acute knowledge of the world around him. It would have been a disservice to not ask the professor about his background. What I was unprepared for, however, was Howell’s ability to articulate his story in such detail. 

He took me on a journey through his life, quoting how his high school days consisted of his care for “football and females,” and how he was a bonafide sampler of all things life: “...tried accounting, tried business administration, tried criminal justice, tried piano…I tried all kinds of stuff…but I took a public speaking class”. The class coincided with his interest in public politics, and how he loved history and “had politic-ing in [his] blood” from an early age. When he transferred to Baylor University to get his Bachelors in Speech Communication, he found that he was able to combine his passions of studying rhetoric and communication in the context of history both in militaristic and political aspects. When Baylor invited him back for his master’s degree, he opted to get married and look for employment instead, sharing that in his eyes “romance with no finance is a nuisance”. Howell, ever the non-traditional student, actually waited six years before returning to Baylor for his master’s degree. Three blisteringly quick years later, Howell applied for an opportunity within Texas A&M’s Presidential Rhetoric Doctoral Program and was offered a teaching assistantship. 

“...and so, my point is, I’m not one of those people who came out of the womb going ‘I’m gonna [major in] bio and pre-med and go to med school. I was kinda all over the place. Even when I went to get the masters, I thought I wanted to be a political speech writer…I discovered [what I wanted to do] along the way, which is an encouragement to some students…I’m proof [that you will be okay].”

Howell continued to explain how he found his love of teaching. After being told he may have approached the wrong field at his Texas A&M doctorate under the aspiration of speech writing, he reconsidered: later defining his work as a professor, Howell realized that he could combine his love for young people with a context of the aforementioned love of history and politics. Thus began the life of Dr. Buddy Howell, the professor. 

Now knowing his history, I asked him about the First Semester Experience course that both he teaches, and I am a part of. He spoke of its evolution in great detail. He explained how the concept started at the University of South Carolina, and as the class began to be more successful, more universities wanted to have them. In Virginia Tech’s vision, the college wanted every offered school and every offered department to have a course: a common book would be read, and similar experiences would be shared. Howell was sure to emphasize, however, how the teachers of the course never really had any control of the curriculum: “...but with us, when it began, it was a 3-hour credit class…we didn't have control over it. No department did.”

Throughout the interview, Dr. Howell specified how the original structure of the course was something of a funnel system. On Mondays, all freshman students from the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences would meet, while Wednesdays would be exclusively Communication majors, and an interdisciplinary level of students on Fridays - “and students hated it. Departments didn’t really like it either…are we really making good use of their time on Mondays?”

It was a teaching group effort to make the class really click. A year after Howell was the main professor for the Wednesday session, departments were granted access to a complete overhaul of the core class. Yet, this did not come without what Howell described as a “crisis point.” He talks very honestly about how the class was almost dissolved at one point during its existence, for the class was simply not meeting the needs of first year students. This message was, plainly, denied by the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, however. 

“But then they came back and said, ‘No, you are going to do it.’ Then we gotta do it different. And so literally, I was sitting in this office and [I] was praying. What am I gonna do that’s gonna do a better job of meeting the needs of first year students and help them successfully transition, not just make it their first semester, but begin to thrive…and that’s when I got the idea of dividing into small groups.”

I had never seen someone talk so passionately about their work, let alone their academic creation, quite like Dr. Howell had at this point of the interview. The professor launched into the story of HUGs: Hokie Undergraduate Groups, all students who had previously completed the First Semester Experience course within Communication and were to be paid for their expertise in leading small groups. He spoke of how student evaluation ratings began to climb, yet his appreciation stayed humble the entire session: “I can’t take any credit for it. It’s the HUG Leaders that are out there doing the work. I came up with the idea, but I mean, the numbers just continued to climb.”

And of course, like all academic settings, the class was disgruntled by the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, Howell persisted. The ratings did dip, Howell stated, but the message stayed the same: have someone that students could recognize - “and students RAVED about that.”

“And people would ask me, ‘how do you recruit for your HUG Leader positions?’ and I would tell them [that] I don’t have to recruit…the HUG Leaders do such a great job that when we were interviewing for [this semester’s HUG Leaders], we would ask them the question: why do you want to be a HUG Leader…and 90% of the time, they would say ‘Because of my HUG Leader…’”

Howell told me that if he did anything right, it was this idea. This was his magnum opus. HUGs, building community, and peer relationships are all in the man’s DNA. 

I asked him how this course, with all its uniqueness and charm, affects his teaching style in the other classes he teaches. His first response? “It continued to remind me that my students are human. They’re not just on my Hokie Roster…it reminds me of the humanity.” That humanity, especially from Dr. Howell, is so present. He spoke passionately about how it means much more to a student if the professor simply knows their name. He wants a big university to feel small. 

“...When you realize that they’re humans, you really care about them as humans, not just how they do in your class…you build the relationships with them, you get to know them.”

Howell shared a final anecdote with me about who he wants to be as a teacher for his students. He walked down Randolph Hall and spotted an advertisement for a study abroad program, with the caption “Good teachers know their content, great teachers know their students”. “That’s the kind of professor that I want to be,” Howell told me. “I want to know my students, I want to care about them, I want to be invested in their lives…if you enjoy coming to class, you’re going to have [a better experience].”

For the future? Howell wants to revert back to some of the old ways. He wishes the course was a three-hour class, meeting three times a week. He brings up the commonly found feedback that students want more time in their HUGs. Seems like the idea still works. 

It was an absolute pleasure and a privilege to sit down with Dr. Howell for our interview. Admittedly, I had little experience with actually conversing with the professor, but he was instantly interested in the idea when I first emailed him. Personally, it serves as a testament to how badly he wants to see his students succeed. I’m looking forward to seeing how the class continues to change as the semester progresses.