Fall 2023 Post 01: Introduction to Keith Hamon

I'm writing with you this term, so here's an introduction to me.

I've worked in education all of my professional life. I have a doctorate from the University of Miami in composition and rhetoric, and I expected to teach college English forever. However, life has a way of shifting. My first job in 1982 at a branch campus of the University of Houston transitioned me into educational technology. I set up an academic support center and computerized it. This was back in the days before you could even get a degree in computer science, so lots of different people in different academic departments were doing computers. I installed the computers in The Communication Center that I directed and networked them to the campus network. The World Wide Web did not exist then, so we used FTP and IRC to communicate with other users, but mostly, we used word processing to write papers. And yes, they were papers. We still printed everything to give to a teacher. As you may have noticed, I don't do that anymore. In my classes, we write online documents, not papers.

I left the University of Houston for Mercer University here in Macon to set up, computerize, and network another academic support center. In 1989, I moved across town to Wesleyan College to become their Director of Information Technology. In 1995, I went to Monroe County (GA) Public Schools to build a county-wide network and put all their teachers, staff, and students on the Web. In short, I had completely shifted from teaching English to full-time educational technology, which is why I use so much technology in all my classes now.

Though technology was my day job (I liked it and it paid more), I still really loved teaching English, so I always taught adjunct classes—mostly at Georgia College and State University. In 2011, I retired from the State of Georgia and took a full-time teaching job at a college in Florida. I didn't like the school much, so I won't mention its name, but I started looking for another position within six months, and in 2015,  Middle Georgia State University offered me a position teaching English composition and literature. I took the job, moved back into my Macon home, and here I am working with you.

In Summer 2022, I retired again. After all, I'm 72 years old, and I want to do some other things in life besides work full time. I've started playing pickleball, for instance. Still, I'm teaching part-time, and ours is the only class I'm teaching this term. I look forward to it.

That sums up my professional life, but I can also give you a few personal facts: I'm married to a beautiful Bahamian woman — we celebrated our 49th wedding anniversary this August 30 — and we have two sons, both grown and gone. Almost seven years ago, our youngest son and his then-wife gave us our first and only grandchild, a thoroughly lovable girl named Madeline, or Maddie, as most of the family is calling her. I am head-over-heels in love with her, and if you stand in one place long enough, then I will bombard you with a thousand pictures. She's worth it. This past Christmas, Maddie and I were up early to have breakfast together.

This is my introduction to the class. It's an example of the kind of introduction I want you to write for the class. Help us connect to you as a real person. And yes, you can add a picture.

If you want to leave a comment to my post, make sure you are logged into your Google account so that I can identify you. Anonymous comments are bad form — too much like trolling. Let's treat each other with kindness and respect.