Don’t wear pink in his class – he will call you out for it. Students that attend Dr. Paul Reddin’s history courses explained that he holds a very logical, fact-based historical argument. He is known for his sense of humor and student oriented ideals. In his classes, he intentionally takes an unpopular stance on historical issues and “harangues” his students to evoke responses.

“I’m not as opinionated as I sound in class,” Reddin said. “I take a strong position and my goal in that is to get the students to think about the material; to get a response.”

Reddin’s approach to history is very different than classes that are merely observations of political histories. He is, as he puts it, “a right-brained guy in a left-brained discipline.”

He said that we connect to the past by realizing that people fell in love, brought about life, and died just as we do today. To him, it is imperative that we establish a connection with our past.

Dr. Reddin hadn’t intended to become a teacher. He started out as a lawyer before getting hooked on teaching. Dr. Reddin’s inspiration is his former professor at Adams State College, Dr. Norma Peterson.

“She was one of the smartest people I ever met, so I decided to go off to the University of Missouri where she had been, and I’d be as smart as she was, but I didn’t ever make it,” Reddin said.

Reddin got the opportunity to teach at Adams State under his mentor, Dr. Peterson, for 13 years before he was offered a position at Mesa State College in 1983 where he helped build a history department.

“I thought I had died and gone to heaven when I came over here,” Reddin said.

After he retires, Reddin plans on becoming a world-famous artist or a professional bodybuilder, depending on certain sponsorship details. He also has a “standing offer to return to Chippendales.” Reddin has also collected 42 file cabinets worth of notes to write a second book. His first, entitled Wild West Shows, was published in 1999.

Reddin truly is a rarity among professors and will be missed by many students, fellow teachers and friends around the campus.