Greg Huebner and the Art of Teaching

 

“His influence on the trajectory of my life started well before I entered Wabash College,” says Deleget, who has received awards from the American Academy of Arts & Letters and whose work has been reviewed in The New York Times. “I first met Greg as a high school student when I was awarded a four-year Fine Arts Fel-lowship to attend Wabash, and my education with him was rigorous, yet completely tailored to me as an individual. 

 

“The most important thing I learned from Greg didn’t come from classes or the meaningful conversations that happen between them. It didn’t come from preparing for my thesis exhibition or studying for my comprehensive exams. It was quite simply this: Greg was the first professional artist I had ever met in my life. He made it profoundly clear to me that life as an artist wasn’t just possible—it was the only life possible.”

 

Huebner also shaped NBC Universal Senior Account Executive Mike Crnkovich ’93, who says the art professor “left a lasting impression on me and installed a constant for creativity and art I have never let go of.

 

“I’m glad to have this as part of my being and will always be able to use it,” says the former history major, basketball standout, and member of the College’s Athletic Hall of Fame. “And it’s a lot more fun and easier than basketball is anymore!”

 

Wabash Assistant Basketball Coach (and former art major) Antoine Carpenter ’00 writes that Huebner “instilled the confidence and hard work I needed to be successful.

 

“There were many times I questioned myself and wondered if I was fit for Wabash, but the art studio became a home away from home. Greg was more than a mentor—more of a father—and when times got tough I wanted to do well for myself and my family, but also for him.

 

“When I remember myself as a freshman, then think of the student I became my senior year, it was night and day. Greg taught me how to become a Wabash man and not to be afraid of failure.”

 

What is it about Greg Huebner’s teaching that has shaped the lives of young men with such different vocations and aspirations? Why do majors from so many different departments remember their courses with Huebner, as former economics major Greg Birk ’77 cites, “as the best classes I took at Wabash”?

 

Perhaps it’s because the art department built by Huebner and his colleague Professor of Art Doug Calisch is such a perfect fit for the liberal arts.

 

“The lion’s share of our kids are experiencing making something in the fine arts for the first time,” says Huebner, who will retire this year after 37 years at the College. “Art, to them, has been drawing something accurately.

 

“Then they get with Doug and myself, and art is an idea and how you execute that idea visually. It turns them upside-down. Art is not just how well you draw or choose your colors. Those are important as you try to communicate your idea, but let’s keep focusing on the idea.” As artist and musician Nate Clark ’03 says, “the values of critical thinking and personal responsibility I learned as an art major continue to guide me.”

 

Perhaps it has been Huebner’s personal commitment to his students —from recruiting to lifelong relationships.

 

“Teaching is a demanding process; it takes such a focus and energy,” Huebner says. “There’s always something more you can do to get through to the students. But whether it’s in the classroom, the studio, my office, or in some social gathering, I feel blessed to have built so many wonderful relationships with my students. I am sometimes stunned by the number of friendships I enjoy with alumni; I’ve even had the joy of building relationships with the sons of many of those same men.”

 

Perhaps it’s Huebner’s dedication as an artist, on dazzling display last year in his Transitions exhibit in the College’s Eric Dean Gallery, a show that included works from a sabbatical year spent painting.

 

“It was just wonderful to be in the studio every day. I couldn’t get enough of it,” says Huebner, who was drawn to the artistic life at an early age. 

 

“Growing up, I was constantly making things and looking for new materials to create things. You know, kids discover by play, and I think artists still discover by play.”

 

He admits his vocation has its stressful moments.

 

“A friend of mine says an artist is the one who has his nuts on the block and is waiting for the biggest knife to come along. And you live on that kind of an edge most of the time.” Huebner laughs. “So sometimes to keep back this stress of Ah, god, I hope this works, you’ve got to approach it another way, and I still approach it as play.”

 

Huebner says he’ll miss teaching and students but is looking forward to focusing on one aspect of his vocation as a teaching artist.

 

“The sabbatical was wonderful timing for me because I was in the studio every day—weekends, too—and that gave me a good look at how I can manage my life productively in the future. I’ll be retiring from the teaching side of my life, but I’ll have all that time to put into my artistic side. I feel blessed to be an artist.”

 

As alumni artists returned from across the country in January for an exhibition of their work and to honor Huebner, architect Eric Rowland ’86 offered a toast.

 

“All of us here are fortunate to be able to do work that may not make a living, but makes life worth living,” Rowland said. “Greg inspired that in us.”

 

Perhaps that’s the art of Huebner’s teaching. Through words and example he has nurtured in each student—from artist to architect to media executive to school administrator to basketball coach—a vision and yearning to seek that which they were created to do, whatever the vocation may be. 

 

Huebner calls it “that which is who you are and what you must do.”

 

That which, after all, is the only life possible.