Finding life’s calling is as simple as “having a good time all the time”

The question hangs in the air. 

“Good or bad?” 

The class stays silent for a few seconds, some students look down to avoid eye contact, others search for the answer in the book in front of them.  

Dr. Russell Weaver, a professor of English at Ashland University, looks down at the class roster ready to call on someone when he notices a hand. He calls on her and the student starts her answer. As Weaver listens he looks off into the distance and leans back in his chair. 

Absentmindedly, he rubs his beard. 

She finishes and the class waits in silence to see what his take will be. 

He thinks a little longer before finally saying, “that’s very interesting, I’ve never thought of it that way before.” 

Weaver makes it clear to his classes that even though he has spent his life discussing books that he really doesn’t have the definitive answer.  But for him, it isn’t necessarily about finding the one answer. It’s about exploring the possibilities through conversations. 

Seeing Weaver as he is today, it’s hard to imagine him as an uninspired student who hated English. 

He was raised in the south, first Tennessee and then Mississippi when his family made the move in 1960. While his family enjoyed outdoor activities and vacations, Weaver had a much more bookish nature. 

His idea of a good vacation was “going to cabin, drinking a coke, and reading books,” but his family enjoyed things such as boat rides, which Weaver described being one of the most boring things he has ever suffered through. Throughout his elementary school years, he kept a 7:30 p.m. bedtime. But instead of actually going to sleep, he would lay in his bed, “under the covers with a gooseneck lamp,” reading until midnight. 

“When I was in the third grade, I used to read about three books a day,” Weaver explained. “I liked reading.”

He would read biographies such as Young Thomas Edison and the Classics Illustrated comic book series. When his family made the move to Mississippi, initially finding friends in the fifth grade was difficult, so reading was there for him. 

His love of reading has followed him into adulthood. Even today, he won’t be found without a book whether he is in class, at the store or at the bank. It’s for one simple reason, he hates being bored. 

Going into high school, Weaver started to get more involved in leadership roles. 

He was president of Key Club and as a senior was class president. His classmates, he explained, “forgave him for being a bit of an egghead.” 

Though he was never what he would consider popular, the race for class president was between two popular students and him, so they split the popular vote and he lucked out and got the position. He realized that he was able to be a good leader, not in the sense that the groups he lead achieved a lot, but rather that he was able to handle himself well in front of people.

Weaver had a few very good friends who were more intellectually minded like him. They would hang out and listen to music by artists such as Arlo Guthrie. And though his close friends were who he spent time with most often, he found friends through student government, clubs and by participating in sports throughout high school.

Academically, Weaver was very gifted. He didn’t have to study much to get good grades. He was able to achieve good marks without studying and without much extra thought. Though he got good grades and loved reading, he hated his English classes with a passion. Instead of going in depth with the books they would read, his teachers gave fill in the blank tests and didn’t make it enjoyable or challenging. It was boring and easy to get through for him without putting in any work. 

Within the month of June 1967, Weaver graduated and didn’t waste a minute moving on to college courses at Tulane University.  Spending even one summer waiting around in his hometown would mean boredom and he was ready to move on. Even now he doesn’t feel an ache to reconnect with his old high school friends. 

He originally planned to major in math because his father was a math major, but once math classes became difficult enough that he couldn’t finish his homework “in the five minutes before class” he changed his mind. Instead he was torn between teaching and being a minister. To him a teacher “was just a guy who read books” which seemed like a natural extension of his interests. After not having to work very hard to get through high school, Weaver was in search of a way to avoid feeling like his job was a job.

“My desire above all was not to work, if possible,” he said with a chuckle. “And so if I did something I liked to do, then that would be the best thing to do.”

One professor at Tulane took Weaver under his wing. Though he was a lecturer, which Weaver said he hates, the two got along well and the professor became a great mentor figure to him. 

“He admired my work and everything and the fact that he liked me was, I guess, an incentive to think about grad school,” Weaver said. “Since he went to grad school and got his Ph.D., when we talked together he just assumed I was going to do that. I had already thought about that, but that certainly moved me in the direction of becoming a teacher.”

The summer after his senior year at Tulane, Weaver was a youth director at a church in Shreveport, Louisiana, but with that experience he realized ministry was not what he wanted to do. 

Weaver likened it to a line from Spinal Tap. He wanted “to have a good time, all the time,” and though he enjoyed working as a youth director, the responsibilities that came with it didn’t fit into his life philosophy. What he prefered to do was to sit down, read books, and talk to people and being a minister did not quite offer such pleasantries.  He settled once and for all on becoming a professor. 

Though his parents wanted him to go for a career that would be more lucrative, he attended grad school at the University of Chicago starting in 1971. 

He started out with a focus on poetry but after an assignment where he had to write a paper on Charles Dickens, he changed his focus to literature. For the first time in his life, he actually had to work hard and put time into his academics. Through high school and even his undergraduate years, studying wasn’t necessary because he would still get good grades. But to know and really understand the content of books he actually had to read them. And though it was work, it was something he really enjoyed. 

Initially the work required of him proved to be too much. After receiving five incompletes, he took a three year break to finish the work he was struggling to get done for his degree. He then returned and began teaching in 1983 in the suburbs of Chicago and the following year finished his degree and received his Ph.D. 

As a new professor, life wasn’t ideal for Weaver. Because he was new he was given an 8 a.m. class and so every day he would leave home at 5:30 a.m. to take an early train across downtown Chicago to get to school by the required hour before class. 

He also started off teaching the way he thought he was supposed to. 

The way teachers had taught him throughout his career. 

The way he hated learning. With boring lectures and quizzes. 

It was in his few years teaching at Elmhurst that he began to really develop his unique style of teaching that he uses today. He found a way to change the typical lecture style of class into one big discussion on the book which included the involvement he missed in his English classes.

He began applying for jobs in at schools around the country. He sent out so many applications that when a little school in Ashland, Ohio called letting him know he had an interview Friday the 13th in June 1986 he couldn’t even remember applying. 

The university was interviewing four people and the woman before him hadn’t done well. It was June, and classes would start soon. The university didn’t have much time to waste and as long as Dr. Weaver didn’t totally blow it, he was almost assured a job. 

He was right. And just like that his life set course for Ashland University.

Still, he wondered why he had been called in for a interview over several other better candidates.  A fellow co-worker let him know that in no uncertain terms he was mistaken for a diverse person. He grew up in the south and the church where he served as a youth director was recognized by someone on the hiring committee as an African-American church. Once again, life just worked well for Dr. Weaver. 

In his time at Ashland, Dr. Weaver has grown in a few different ways but the most noticeable for him is in his philosophical ways. For the last 28 years Dr. Weaver has lead a philosophy reading group on Fridays at noon. 

It started when the faculty went on a retreat to discuss a book about philosophy and found they had difficulties having a good conversation about it. So since 1988 every friday, Dr. Weaver gets together with other professors, some semesters more heavily attended than others, and talks about philosophy. 

“It’s like pushups for your brain,” Weaver said. “Just like with a demanding novel, your brain grows stronger with knowledge but the more you exercise the better you get at understanding complexity of thought.” 

Dr. Vaughn has been attending the Friday meetings for the last 20 years and Dr. Weaver considers him one of his closest friends on campus. The meetings have become more than just a quest for better understanding. It’s a social gathering for Dr. Weaver. It certainly may not be everyone’s idea of a great time but sitting around, speaking with people, and discussing books and thoughts fits Dr. Weaver’s plans to have a good time all the time quite well. 

As a professor at Ashland, Weaver has touched countless lives with his unique teaching style, and in return he has received a lifetime of doing what he loves.