Adrianna Booth || Staff Writer || Issue 10
Scott Hathaway was holding a beat-up, 1990s, charades-style game he got at a thrift store for a dollar, turning the box in his hands and explaining how he plans to use it in his public speaking class. The set of prompt cards, decades old, he said, would allow students to practice gestures and physical expression when speaking to a crowd.
The scene is consistent with the teaching style Hathaway has perfected over 32 years at Hudson Valley Community College, where improvisation and student comfort drive much of what he brings to the classroom. He continues to look for new ways to encourage students to speak and write with confidence after having taught for more than three decades.
“I’m always trying to keep them engaged,” Hathaway said. “Anything that gets them moving, talking and feeling comfortable is a win.”
Hathaway, now chair of the Fine Arts, Digital Media and Theatre Department, has spent more than half his life at HVCC, but his journey there began long before he entered college when he was 14, showing younger Boy Scouts how to perform some of the most basic merit badges. He recalled making a poster identifying the parts of an axe, teaching the lesson and quizzing the scouts.
“It was fun teaching and instructing students,” Hathaway said.
A couple of years later, a high school health teacher dropped into his study hall to find volunteers to serve as tutors in the kindergarten classroom downstairs. Hathaway registered, going to his K–12 school on a weekly basis to help the youngest students, and his love for teaching was cemented.
When he first arrived at Hudson Valley as a freshman, he knew exactly what he wanted to do. He thrived in English classes and transferred, after two years, to get a master’s degree in English from the University at Albany, thinking it was essential to anyone who wanted to teach at the collegiate level.
Yet finding a full-time position was very hard. The economy’s recession in the early 1990s created few openings, and instructors throughout the district held onto their positions for longer, limiting career openings for newcomers.
“It wasn’t super easy to get jobs in education back then,” he said.
Hathaway also juggled part-time work at multiple institutions such as Russell Sage, Schenectady County Community College and Southern Vermont College in Bennington.
“It was hard to work at three different colleges at once just to make a living,” Hathaway said. “My heart always was at Hudson Valley,” he said. And while he eventually returned to HVCC with a bold move, he stumbled into the English department chair’s office and introduced himself. There were no open positions but the chair recalled him after two composition sections opened the following year.
“It was a bit gutsy,” he said. “But nothing ventured, nothing gained.”
He taught part time before interviewing for a full-time position, and has remained at the college since.
Hathaway considers his teaching philosophy to be student-centered and grounded in the concept of learning effectively when students feel competent and supported. He teaches writing and public speaking, classes he calls “life skills” that students take into other classes and their future careers.
“I try not to be the one who knows everything,” he said. “We’re all in this together.”
He likes the hands-on approach and urges his students to practice tools. In-class exercises are often linked to topics presented in weekly classes for students to write. In public speaking courses you will find impromptu speeches, communication games and exercises designed also to make students more comfortable.
Hathaway also insists his students are never embarrassed. He tries to satisfy various learning styles through independent work, small groups and low-pressure warm ups.
“I try to use words like ‘we’ and ‘us,’” he said. “I don’t think it does any good to have a teacher versus student scenario.”
One activity that he enjoyed was having journalism students visit newspapers of their own community, such as the Times Union and the Troy Record, to discover how a newsroom worked.
“That was always a fun time,” he said.
Hathaway, who had spent 20 years in the English Department, became interim chair in 2010 when the department’s leader left on leave. What he found was that he enjoyed mentoring faculty as much as teaching students.
“I loved helping younger faculty,” he said. “Maybe I know more about this kind of job than I thought I did.”
When the chair position in Fine Arts, Digital Media and Theatre opened in 2015, he saw ways the areas connected and accepted the role, even though it took him outside his discipline. Since then, he has learned what art faculty and studio students need, including equipment, space and scheduling support.
“I learned so much about art and what student artists need to be successful,” Hathaway said.
He said he is proud of the department’s recent expansion. Last year it launched a redesigned drawing and painting studio on the third floor of Amstutz Hall and a new room for two-dimensional design. Advanced students now have individual cubicles. The digital media program also gained an additional classroom, BTC 1053, to accommodate rising enrollment in animation and graphic design. A nearby open-access lab, open daily from 7 a.m. to midnight, gives students a place to complete digital projects without buying expensive equipment.
“That space was a huge win for our students,” Hathaway said.
Even after he received a statewide teaching award, a crowning achievement in his career, he said it only encouraged him to work harder.
“I try to live up to the honor of that award,” he said.
Now in his 32nd year of teaching, Hathaway said he does not want to leave Hudson Valley.
“I could retire tomorrow,” he said. “But I choose instead to continue to work with students and faculty for as long as they’ll have me.”
He looked again at the old game on his desk, ready to try it out on his next group of public speaking students.
“My old alma mater is the place I’ve been for more than half my life,” he said. “They’ll have to drag me out, kicking and screaming.”
The Hudsonian 