Dr. Charles Howard retires from Tarleton after 33 years

BY ASHTYN HANSARD / Executive Producer

As the spring semester at Tarleton State University is coming to an end, senior students are getting ready to start their adventure in the world, while undergraduate students are getting ready to have a few months off from homework. However, Dr. Charles Howard is getting ready for something different.

Dr. Howard is a communications professor at Tarleton. He has been a working faculty member for the past 33 years. 

“I came here in the fall of 1991,” Howard said. “I came here as an assistant professor in the fine arts and speech department. I eventually became the department chair when we created the Communication Studies Department for 11 years and then stepped down. I’ve been a professor here ever since then.”

In his 33 years here at Tarleton, Howard has been able to teach hundreds of kids in many courses. 

“When I came here [Tarleton], I pretty much taught everything,” Howard said. “I started mostly with Basic Speech, which I have done for 33 years. I’ve also done Honors Speech, Communications Law, which I’ve taught for the past 20-something years.”

Over the time of his career, Howard has been able to scale down which courses he teaches. 

“I’ve taught journalism, I’ve taught PR and I’ve taught interpersonal,” Howard said. “I’ve taught a ton of different courses over the years until we started our own department and expanded the curriculum. I mainly focused on things like public speaking, communication law and other courses similar to those.”

When asked why Howard chose to work at Tarleton, he responded that it was just simply a choice he made. 

“I applied to work here in the summer of ‘91 when I was still at the University of Kansas,” Howard stated. “I got offered the job and I took it. I honestly didn’t expect to stay here for so long. I thought it would be a very temporary position, but then I just stayed and stayed.”

With Howard working here for so long and having taught so many different communications classes, I was curious to know which had been his favorite to teach to the students. 

“Communications Law has always been my favorite,” Howard said. “It’s so many different issues and it’s always current, it’s always something new. There’s always something that you have to think about. It involves a lot of important issues, not only societally but also for people individually.”

When asked about his favorite part of Tarleton as a whole, Howard said it was always the people. 

“Whether it’s interacting with colleagues, students or people in the community, it’s always been the people that I’ve worked with.”

“I’ve been very, very lucky with working with people who wanted to do a good job and who wanted to build things. It’s always been the most important thing to me.”

Howard opened up and talked about his old professor, Dr. Steve Smith, and how he created an impression on him while in school.

“He was a very good teacher, but he was also a person who had done a lot of different things,” Howard said. “He had been the Chief-of-Staff when Bill Clinton was the Attorney General of Arkansas. He had been on Bill Clinton’s staff when he was Governor of Arkansas. He was in the State Legislature. He had just done a lot of different things. He showed me that you could be in academia and still be a part of the larger community and the larger conversation. I think he was the one that made the biggest impact on me and how I wanted to live my career out and what I wanted to do with my career.”

Howard has been a teacher at Tarleton for over three decades, but he was once a student just like us here at Tarleton. Howard pondered on what piece of advice he would give his younger self.

“I think the most important thing is to find out what you really want to do, what really makes you fulfilled,” Howard said. “If you follow that and not worry about things like money and ‘climbing the ladder,’ you’ll do much better. Generally speaking, money and achievements will follow if you do something you love. You want to focus on working hard, doing a good job and improving the community around you. If you can do those things, the rest will be okay.”

When asked about what he would miss about Tarleton, he knew his answer immediately.

“The people,” Howard said. “My colleagues, the interactions I have with people and the interaction of ideas and talking about ideas. I think that’s what I’ll miss the most about Tarleton.”

When working a job for as long as Howard has, I was curious to know how teaching had impacted his life.

“It’s obviously helped me see that there’s a bigger world out there and I’m just a part of it,” Howard said. “When you leave this world, the only thing you’re going to leave behind is the impact you’ve made on people. Everything else is just, well, junk.”

After hearing his philosophy of leaving a good impact on the world and doing the best you can, I asked him what kind of impression he was hoping to leave on his current and past students.

“I hope they have been empowered,” Howard said. “If they were in my public speaking class, I hope I taught them how to articulate their ideas. I hope they’ve been empowered to express their ideas and to express their passions. I want them to think for themselves, do the work to support themselves and sustain themselves. If you can do that, that’s the first step to helping the community.”

Howard reflected about if he were to start his journey over again knowing everything he knows now, would he do it?

“You can only walk the path that’s in front of you,” Howard said. “I don’t regret any of the decisions I’ve made in terms of the big picture.”

Howard wishes his students the best of luck in the world and hopes they will live the rest of their lives leaving a good impact on their community and the people around them.