Profile: Rick Chamblin

Rick Chamblin
Chair of Natural & Physical Sciences 

I grew up in rural southeastern Illinois; however, my father worked for an oil company and we moved several times before I finished high school. When I was nine-years-old, we moved to Iraan, Texas, a town so small the little league baseball team I was on played the same team (the only other one) every week. At age 12, we moved to Findlay, Ohio, and then my last two years in high school were in Dublin, Ireland. Moving so often allowed me the opportunity to learn how to make friends easily. I had ambitions of being a veterinarian, so I got my Bachelor of Science from Texas A&M University in Biomedical Science in 1981. I stayed at TAMU in College Station to complete my Master of Science in Veterinary Microbiology in 1983.  

My graduate work centered around clinical bacteriology. My master’s thesis was the “Rapid Identification of Bacteria using a Fluorescent Umbelliferone Assay.” My major professor, Dr. John Quarles, was the first professor to purchase a PC for any department; and I used it to write my thesis paper.  My paper was the first in the history of Texas A&M University to have no errors when reviewed by the librarian staff. Thank the Lord for spell check because with 10 years in college and three degrees, I am functionally illiterate. 

In 1986 I was accepted to the 102^nd spot of 104 openings at the University of Illinois Veterinary College. Budget cuts forced them to lower the enrollment to 88 later that summer, so I was put on a “waiting list.”  Somewhat discouraged, and at the encouragement of a close friend that thought I was better with people than with animals, I changed courses in my education and went to Texas Chiropractic School and received a doctorate in 1986. I passed my national and state boards and after receiving my Texas licensure, I moved to San Antonio and practiced on the North Side for 24 years until retiring in 2010. I had a family practice, worked as a consultant to large insurance carriers performing independent medical exams, and was one of just a handful of chiropractors that reached Level II examiner status for the Texas Department of Insurance, Workers Compensation Commission. I also taught seminars to law firms and insurance adjusters. 

In 2004 my wife became very ill before delivering our daughter three weeks early, and it took her several years to recover to where she is now. Blind for months, with damage to her heart, lungs and brain, this was probably the darkest time in my life. Through it all, it taught me to value every single day and never forget to tell the people you love how you feel about them. My wife spent weeks in the Intensive Care Unit and was only given a 5 percent chance to survive. I was left wondering where was I going to find black suits for young boys. At that point, I realized I was giving up and I wasn’t ready to do that. By truly no less than a miracle my wife woke up from her coma, still intubated, and wrote on a pad of paper with a pencil I held in her hand “Boys.”  I told her they were fine. Then she wrote “Baby,” and I said the baby was fine and at home. She still thought the baby was in her because of all the swelling from the pancreatitis. She cried because she missed her daughter's birth. I can hardly even write about that time in my life even now without becoming emotional, but it shaped my life and how I see relationships ever since. 

With my wife’s lengthy recovery, I stopped playing “doctor’s Thursday” golf and started teaching as an adjunct in the fall of 2005 to make up for the loss of her part-time job income. I liked teaching so much I started teaching two A&P classes. Eventually, a position to teach microbiology became available and I was teaching as a full-time adjunct. Eight months later, in 2008 I was offered a full-time tenure track position and after some rearranging of my practice and my life, I accepted and have been at NVC ever since.  

Teaching and practicing became too difficult, so I sold my practice, and went on a five-year “inactivated license” (sabbatical) status. Two years ago I moved across Loop 1604 from the college to be closer and omit my 27-mile commute. I waited for my (now) 20-year-old twin sons to graduate from Reagan High School before moving. I have four sons; my oldest is married and living in New York as a lighting designer, my second son is at Texas A&M University, and my twin 20-year-olds are at Texas State. My one and only daughter just turned 10 and is a straight “A” student at Hoffmann Elementary. She loves animals and is smarter than all of us.  

The most rewarding part of teaching is helping students “get it.” When I get to witness that “ah-ha” moment, it reminds me that my life has true meaning. I’m proud of the good marks I get for knowledge and teaching, I am just as proud of the three out of five ratio on Rate Your Professor I get for difficulty. I never want to be the “easy” teacher. I use humor, storytelling, and real-life examples (including my own personal experiences) to get students motivated to learn. I encourage my students to “own” the material we cover, and not just memorize it, but really own it so they never have to learn it again.  

When Dr. Jackie Claunch hired me as a full-time tenure track instructor in the summer of 2008, she asked what my favorite NVC Value (now NVC Touchstone) was. I told her it was integrity; and I told her that again (six years later almost to the day) a couple of weeks ago during her last new faculty welcome lunch when she asked us all that same questions. I don’t think the other values mean much at all if you don’t have integrity. I tell my students before each test that we all have much to lose, money comes and goes, even intelligence can be taken by injury or disease, but character is something ONLY YOU can THROW away, and it’s very hard to get it back once you have.  

I do have a happier phrase that has stuck with me for years. It's a quote from San Antonio-born, surrealistic, one-liner humorist, Jack Handey (featured on SNL’s “Deep Thoughts”), who said, “I hope that after I die, people will say of me: That guy sure owed me a lot of money.”  

– Rick Chamblin