Before becoming a professor at BYU–Hawaii, Dr. Lenard Huff said he taught in several universities such as the University of Phoenix. After teaching for five years at the University of Hawaii, he said he read a Church News post saying BYUH needed a new marketing professor.
Huff said he was not sure whether he would take the job posting. He recalled one day, as he was planning on visiting Laie to go to the temple that he had a feeling to look more into the position.
“I called up the dean and said, ‘I’m going to the temple today, but I’d like to know more about the position… So, I talked to them and thought, ‘I really need to do this.’ So, I applied, and I guess the rest is history.”
When asked what his favorite part of teaching was, Huff laughed and said, “It certainly isn’t grading.” He shared he enjoyed working with students on projects, especially when students wrote a marketing plan for a product or business.
In regards to why he liked the marketing plan, he said, “Because it’s when students bring it all together and they can get creative. It has given me an opportunity to get out into the community and develop relationships with business people and community [members].
Huff also shared he liked having to think about “what he was going to teach” and enjoyed “how he got to learn from observing students’ and professors’ lifestyles on campus.” He added it was a “good combination of working with people.”
After Spring Semester, Huff said he will be moving back to Provo and despite BYU in Provo being nearby, he would miss the university life the most. “I’m just going to miss coming to the office every day. [I’m also] going to miss having access to the gym, and the swimming pool. I’m going to miss devotionals as well.
“I just think that there’s a mission here that all of a sudden I’m not apart of anymore. So, I’m going to kind of miss that as well,” remarked Huff.
After being away from Utah for almost 30 years, Huff said, “I want to spend some time just renewing and nurturing relationships that kind of drifted away a little bit.” Although Huff and his wife have traveled to different countries in the past, he and his wife plan to make a trip to various North American countries every year. He said he would also like to do more family research and visit places where he and his wife’s families are from, such as Scandinavia, Germany and the British Isles.
Writer: Esther Insigne