Dr. Rick Cumings is a Communication Professor at California University of Pennsylvania. At no point in his life, did he ever want to be a teacher but after completing his Graduate degree in Journalism at Marquette University, he saw a flyer in the hallway for a teaching position in Kansas. He applied on a whim and got the job. After 5 years of teaching, while still doing sports journalism on the side, he decided that teaching is what he wanted to do full-time for the rest of his life. He attended Penn State University and got his Doctorate in teaching, and after teaching at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, Penn State-University Park, Liberty University and Benedictine College, he came to Cal U. He has taught many courses here at Cal U, including Audio Production, Sports Communication, Public Speaking, Commercial Writing, Broadcast Management and Intro to Mass Communication.
Cumings also has freelanced for ESPN and NBC Sports, broadcasting professional golf tournaments. Since golf is his favorite pass-time, the time spent freelancing for these networks are also what he considers to be some of his greatest personal achievements. Once when freelancing for NBC Sports, he was working the PGA Series Championship as a spotter. While Arnold Palmer was competing in his last competitive round of golf ever played, he hit a ball off to the right of the main course. As a spotter, you are not supposed to talk at all, but when Arnold Palmer came to take his shot, he looked at Cumings and asked him how he was doing, and thanked him for being at the event. Cumings has cherished this moment ever since.
Along with being a Communication Professor and freelancing for ESPN and NBC Sports, Cumings is also the APSCUF Public Relations Director at Cal U. When asked about the potential upcoming strike, he offered some advice to students who want to remain active and involved;
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REMAIN ACTIVE!
-the best way to encourage a change and help to end the strike would be to e-mail or call PASSHE, or Ken Mash on www.apscuf.org
2. Make sure you don’t get behind on class work, if you have long term projects, keep working on them and don’t fall behind
3. If the professors have a picket line, students are allowed to picket too!
NOW, for the fun questions:
What we all really want to know about the important people on campus!
Dr. Cumings (also known as Doc), spends his weekends playing golf, watching football, shooting archery in his backyard and cooking. His favorite shows right now on TV are Hawaii 5-0 and Black List (along with the occasional episode of The Voice or Gilmore Girls with his wife). His biggest pet peeve is when someone is driving behind him and won’t get off his bumper. When it comes to the big question of whether he is a cat person or a dog person, he promptly responded by saying, “dogs all the way!”. His favorite color is Duke blue, and if he could have one super power it would be, “like Edward from Twilight… I want to read people’s minds!”. His favorite authors right now are Clive Cussler and Brad Thor. The first concert Doc ever saw was the Beach Boys. Finally, his least favorite question to answer is, “How do you feel…” so my final question to him was exactly that, to which he answered, “*sigh*… fine”.