Drummond started his college career at the University of Stanford with a bachelor’s in English.
“It was quite a culture shock for me, because I was from a small town in Ohio, and most people there (Stanford) assumed I grew up on a farm and didn’t know anything about anything,” Drummond said.
Drummond didn’t see this as a setback though; he saw it as an opportunity.
“So, I was a hick, but it was a chance for me to reinvent myself,” Drummond said. “It was rough going at first, but I got the hang of it and I had a great time there. What saved me there was my relationships with my professors and getting to know them.”
As an English major, he was fascinated by literature and also the excitement professors could generate in the classroom, Drummond said.
There were three professors in particular that helped transform Drummond’s view of teaching. He is still in contact with all of them today, 35 years down the road, Drummond said.
After graduating from Stanford, Drummond went straight on to acquire his MBA in marketing.
“That was another tough adjustment, because I went from talking about Shakespeare to target markets and things like that.,” Drummond said.
An MBA in marketing wasn’t just a stab in the dark for Drummond though.
“There was some cross over from English to marketing, because there are characters, costumes and themes,” Drummond said. “Marketing kind of made sense to me. Marketing relied on colors, catch phrases, design and art. I figured I could relate to trying to catch people’s attention.”
Upon finishing his MBA, Drummond moved on to selling cosmetics in Florida. Bored with the sales process, he eventually took a job in marketing for the phone company, Pacific Bell.
“The marketing experience was rewarding, but I missed that campus feel,” Drummond said. “That’s when I went back for my Ph.D. in Communication. When I got to the University of Texas, I fell in love with the education process again.”
Drummond came to UW after getting his doctorate. He jumped straight in to teaching at the collegiate level, which caused some difficulties at first.
“My mentor, Robert Hopper, used a tennis analogy for teaching,” Drummond said. “We played a lot of tennis together, and I would let him win. When we were going into the classroom though, he would say to me, ‘Alright, Kent, rush the net.’”
Drummond used this approach in the wide breadth of classes that he has taught at UW. He spent 14 years in the COJO department teaching classes such as Cross Cultural Communication, Language and Society and Broadway and Communication, Drummond said.
“After about 14 years, the opportunity came to move over to the college of Business,” Drummond said. “Maybe it was time for a change, and fortunately the powers that be were kind enough to let me do that.”
Through all his years at UW and all the different courses he’s taught, there is one thing that matters most, Drummond said.
“It’s the relationship with the students. From a big class, getting to know two or three students and continuing that through the years,” Drummond said.
Just as with the professors of his at Stanford, Drummond strives to always leave in impact.
“I just saw a student from the very first class that I taught in 1990,” Drummond said. “He’s now a super corporate travel agent in Philadelphia, and he came back for homecoming. Just being able to see young people develop and mature and to think that you may have played some role in it is beyond measure.”