Mike Fenn
by Cheryl Wagstaff
staff writer
Hal Halbert gets his teaching inspiration from his family and former teachers.
Although Hal, as he wishes to be called by his students, is only a temporary member of the Cabrini staff he is very quick to mention that he has already fallen in love with nearly every aspect of this college. “There is a wide range of students both on personal and intellectual levels,” Halbert said.
Hal teaches four sections of English 101 and calls the course very labor intensive.
At the young age of 29, Hal received his bachelor’s degree from William and Mary College and his master’s degree from Lehigh University. He is currently working toward his doctorate.
Hal’s favorite aspect of teaching is that he has the ability to help people not just in their academic but also in their personal lives.
He considers himself a professional student up to this point in his life because he is still in college and has not had a very stable job in the teaching field thus far.
As a child, he aspired to be The Lone Ranger because of his leadership ability. Those dreams changed though as he grew up. His mother was a substitute and first grade teacher, and he saw first hand what went on in her career.
“The reason that I am teaching college students is because I saw how hard she worked, and I would rather deal with the more grown-up crowd,” Halbert said.
He met his wife, Stacy, while they were attending William and Mary. They do not have any children and probably will not simply because their lives are so crazy that he thinks it would be unfair to the child. However, seeing fellow teacher Charlie McCormick with his two daughters, he cannot help but wonder.
One thing that Hal feels very strongly about is that someone other than the teacher reads his students’ writings.
He believes that they write differently knowing that their peers are going to read their papers. He set up a web site where his students’ papers are posted so that everyone may read them. The web site is www.sphosting.com/halbert/fall2000.
