The Student News Site of Central Oregon Community College

The Broadside

The Student News Site of Central Oregon Community College

The Broadside

The Student News Site of Central Oregon Community College

The Broadside

Greg Lyons retiring after 19 of teaching

Nathaniel Kelly
The Broadside

Greg Lyons is retiring after 19 years of teaching humanities and writing classes at Central Oregon Community College.

Lyons has taught a wide variety of classes including popular culture classes, various writing classes, and a John Steinbeck class. Of everything he’s taught, his favorite was a film noir class.

“Film noir is interesting because of the angles, and black/ white cinematography. Lot’s of technical cinematography,” said Lyons.

Lyons studied at the British Film Institute where his research focused on women in film noir.

Before he taught at COCC, he taught at several schools including his first job teaching high school English. He then went on to teach college level writing and English classes at Humboldt State, University of Texas, Harthel Community College, Sollead University, Oregon State University and Harvard University.

During Lyons’ 19 years of teaching at COCC, he has noticed a change of scenery at the college.

“The school has grown; doubled in student population, building space, and the number of buildings. More older students are coming back because they lost their jobs, and more 18 year- olds because it’s cheaper to go here,” said Lyons.

The most rewarding part, Lyons said is to see students really work hard and get better at writing.

“I could see big gains from one class to the next because of the teaching styles. [Students] use basic skills when going to a harder type of writing, [students] seem to get more out of writing. Give them practice, and then they are successful,” said Lyons

A former writing student of Lyons, Everett Nichol said that “he was good at lecturing, he kept you going.” Nichol also said that Lyons accepted so many other different points of view.

On the administrative side, Dr. Eleanor- Sumpter Latham, the department chair of the English and Humanities department said tat Lyons is an excellent contributor when it comes to designing courses and making sure things are up to date or current.

“He is very flexible in terms of things he can teach; he has a wide variety of expertise,” said Latham.

Although Lyons will be retiring this summer from COCC, he will still be teaching English part time, writing a book titled “Confessions of an Army Brat” about his travels around the country. He also wants to travel to Italy, France, and Mexico.

“I will miss contact with students who are growing intellectually; the light bulb going off [as they are] understanding the material,” said Lyons.

Nathaniel Kelly can be reached at [email protected]

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