Looking Back

Professor emeritus makes dramatic difference in classroom

Dr. Tom Erhard officially retired from NMSU in 1991, but that's an irrelevant detail to the students in his Modern European Drama class. The professor emeritus teaches one class each semester with as much energy and enthusiasm as a first-year instructor. This academic year is Erhard's 37th at NMSU.

"I'm still growing as a teacher," he says. Erhard credits his wife, Evelyn Madrid Erhard, '79, '82, for "encouraging me, inspiring me and needling me to be better."

In 1960, Erhard joined the English department as a creative writing teacher. In 1961, theater head Hershel Zohn asked if he would like to teach some dramatic literature courses. Erhard created all of NMSU's course offerings in that area, except for those in Shakespeare. He also served as the first faculty adviser for NMSU's literary magazine, Puerto del Sol. For 27 years, he directed the Southwest High School Creative Writing Awards.

In Erhard's third year at NMSU, Vice President William O'Donnell asked him to become dean of arts and sciences. Erhard seriously considered it, then presented O'Donnell a list of four reasons to become an administrator and 14 reasons to say no.

As he declined the offer, Erhard knew he faced a defining moment in his career. "I wanted to remain a teacher," he says. "I had started as a high school teacher and loved it. Teaching has given my life direction and definition."

Erhard moved to the Department of Theatre Arts in 1980, but his courses always have been cross-listed under English and theatre arts. "It doesn't matter where I hang my hat," he says.

Student evaluations tell Erhard he is an enthusiastic, fair, knowledgeable professor who cares about them. He knows he has a reputation as "a complete softy."

"Tom is one of a kind. He's a professor who is a friend for life," says writer Jean Blackmon Waszak, '69, of Corrales, N.M.

Blackmon Waszak took several classes with Erhard, including playwriting. She recalls how he would type two fingered at breakneck speed on an ancient machine.

"He encouraged me as a writer," she says. "I'm still writing, and he was one of the reasons."

She recalls student gatherings at Erhard's home where "he'd feed us dinner and we'd read a play. It made it so alive for us and fun."

Erhard's approachability is part natural personality, part teaching technique. He wants students to feel comfortable talking about how plays connect to their own experiences. Dramatic literature courses are "the most vocational courses on campus," he believes. Plays teach students about human nature, he says, and better equip them to deal with their personal and professional lives.

Erhard's life at NMSU has had its moments of dramatic tension and near tragedy. He was nominated six times for NMSU's highest award for teaching, the Westhafer, but never won it. A decade ago, he took a sabbatical leave to write NMSU's centennial play, "And...Here Come the Aggies!" While working at a feverish pace to stage it, he suffered a heart attack nine days before opening night. Evelyn Erhard handled eleventh hour script cuts and direction. Erhard saw his play and heard the applause only on videotape.

These days, at age 74, he enjoys good health. And he believes the university he has served for nearly 40 years will remain healthy, too, if it stays true to its land-grant heritage.

"Higher education should be open to everybody, and as inexpensively as possible," says the professor emeritus. "I'm not saying we should slide people through, but everybody should have an opportunity to start, to try. That's how society improves itself."

Rita A. Popp, '93