After 31 years at Delta College, Professor Randy Crawford is retiring at the end of the 2025 spring semester
By Adalae Partridge
Crawford has been teaching for a total of 36 years. He has enjoyed working here at Delta and has this to say about why it’s so special.
“The students, the faculty, the staff, the college, the buildings, and having this great lab to work in, and just nice people,” Crawford says. “But Delta just rocks; it really does. Like I have students I had twenty, fifteen years ago; they come back and visit. It’s a Delta family, the Delta difference!”
Crawford has always wanted to do art but was really inspired by the professors and teachers he had.
“My 2-D teacher, Robert McGuvern, he just taught so much about cleaning brushes, mixing paints, studio procedures, and staying clean and organized,” Crawford says. He went on to mention another teacher that was an inspiration for him, “my favorite ceramics teacher, Elizabeth Stuart.”
“With those great professors I wanted to show students what I had learned,” he says.
For Crawford, the biggest part of teaching was the students watching them and helping them create beautiful works of art.
Lab assistant Sibel says, “People are coming in with all these skills, working among so many skill levels and a diverse group of students inspiring each other and looking at the different perspectives that they are bringing into the experience.”
Sibel was actually a former student of Crawford who he invited back to help as a lab assistant.
She saw how Crawford interacts with his students and shared an example of how he inspires them.
“Working with clay you put so much time and everything into it, and with clay it can break at any stage. And when you put so much into yourself into when it breaks you can get emotional,” she says. “If something were to break he (Crawford) would say ‘that’s ok make a new one, that’s ok I’ll help you make a hundred we’ll make a hundred’ and he just jumps in.”
Crawford has been a teacher since 1988.
“Each year it gets funner,” Crawford says.
Even after all this time, his favorite part of teaching is still the students.
“The students, seeing their finished work,” he says. “When someone comes in not knowing much–and I don’t mean about clay, just anything in art–and then seeing them graduate is really cool; then go onto another school is even cooler.”
“Memorable moments are when we have the student show and I walk in and I see that my different students won prizes. Or that they entered a national competition and won prizes” Crawford says. “Anything that they enter and win prizes or get in shows beyond Delta is so exciting because they email me, or text, or call.”
The most memorable thing, he says, is, “when one of my students, Tim Speaker, had a vision problem and was going blind and stuff; he had never had an art class. Took my one photoshop class then another then went on and became a great teacher–been all over the world teaching.”
Crawford started teaching because of the wonderful teachers he had, but he stayed for the students. Students feel the passion and enthusiasm he has for art through his teaching.
Congratulations, Randy Crawford, and thank you for all the time you’ve spent at Delta College!
Related sites and more about Crawford
https://www.delta.edu/foundation/journeys/2022-spring/randal-crawford.html
https://www.mlive.com/bctimes_entertainment/2008/12/delta_college_show_highlights.html
