Due to inclement weather, NRCC (Dublin and Christiansburg) is closed Friday January 30, 2026.
May 08 2008
This article was published on May 08 2008 and was archived on May 09 2009. The information below may be outdated or inaccurate.
William E. "Eddie" Goodson of Pulaski will become the eleventh teaching faculty member to receive the honor in the college's 39-year history. The special designation is a long-standing tradition bestowed upon a few faculty members with meritorious service who have retired from full-time teaching at NRCC.
NRCC President Jack M. Lewis says, "We're proud to honor Eddie this year with the NRCC Faculty Emeritus award. He most certainly deserves the distinction; he's one of a kind."
"He was well-liked and respected by his peers, his students and everyone in between; his service for the college and its students can only be described as exemplary," said Dr. Pablo Chalmeta, associate professor of mathematics, who nominated him on behalf of the college's faculty.
Goodson's dramatic flair engaged students and brought to life poetry and literature. "He could get so excited about a poem that when he read it to the class he did so with such force that people would stop in the halls and come from other classrooms to see what was going on," adds Chalmeta.
"My classroom demeanor seemed spontaneous to the students," Goodson says. "But it was usually very deliberate. I learned what worked and what didn't over the years. It was more than entertainment, you had to give backbone to the subject."
"Teaching, to me, is an art... not a science. It's more about communicating than anything else," he adds.
Goodson was not afraid to let his personality show during his lectures. He said, "I paced around, I raised my voice. It was all geared toward giving the students an experience they'd learn from and something they'd enjoy."
His philosophy was not to teach a subject or discipline... but to teach people. "If you keep that distinction in mind, you teach better," he says. He also practiced the "Three F's" that he learned in education classes in college: be friendly, firm and fair.
During his 32 years at NRCC, Goodson taught over 13,000 students. He taught many different courses from English literature to government and human relations, but over the long-term, focused on American literature and philosophy. His favorite course to teach was philosophy because he enjoyed exploring with students how to think and how to reason. "I loved presenting new ideas and new ways of perceiving reality," he says.
Goodson's teaching career at NRCC included an early assignment as an adjunct faculty member when he team taught with math instructor Edith Ruben at the prison camp in Dublin. He also says he's probably the only faculty member who has rappelled from the roof of one of the college buildings. In the 1980's, during a demonstration speech on rock climbing in one of his classes, a student asked Goodson to rappel from Godbey Hall as he gave his speech. He says he accomplished the feat even though he was wearing slick-soled loafers. Goodson also said he has taught at most of the off-campus sites the college has utilized including the Radford Arsenal, Inland Motors, former sites at the University Mall in Blacksburg, the college's former APCO site in Christiansburg, Giles High School, and the list goes on.
Along with his teaching duties, Goodson served as faculty assembly president, assistant division dean, interim dean of arts and sciences, affirmative action/equal employment opportunities officer, Phi Theta Kappa advisor, and editor of the student literary journal and newspaper. He also served for 15 years as the college's representative on the community college system's state-level grievance panel. "I never second-guessed my decision to be at New River," Goodson says. "NRCC has always placed a high level of importance on positive human relations, both internally and with studen
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