Dr. Cal Easterling grew up in Osage County, Oklahoma, and now serves as a senior professor of sociology and the accreditation liaison officer for Oral Roberts University. His classes include Marriage and Family, Social Theory, Deviant Behavior and Minority Group Relations.
Q. Which is your favorite class to teach?
Multiple classes tie as Easterling’s favorite.
“Deviant Behavior delves into explanations of why humans behave the way we do,”Easterling said. “Social Theory and Cultural Anthropology provide insight into why society is in its current state.”
These interesting concepts make the classes enjoyable to teach, he said.
Q. What are your hobbies?
Easterling enjoys playing chess with people across the world via chess.com.
He is a ham radio operator and certified storm spotter with the National Weather Service.
Easterling is also a charter member of Oklahoma Hunters and Anglers and a life member of the National Rifle Association.
He has also served as precinct chair in the Republican Party for many years, Easterling said. He can often be found teaching and preaching at Victory Church on Sunday evenings.
Q. What brought you to ORU?
“When I was a child, my mother was healed dramatically while watching Oral Roberts on TV,” Easterling said.
This event made an important impact in Easterling’s life. In 1990, when a position came open in the Behavioral Sciences Department at ORU, Easterling received an offer and accepted it.
Q. When it comes to your field of study, what fascinates you?
“The satisfaction of understanding society and human behavior,” Easterling said. “Life is not a mystery.”
Q. What is one way God has surprised you in life?
“‘Aslan is not a tame lion,’” Easterling said, quoting a line from C.S. Lewis’s “Chronicles of Narnia” series.
“God is not quite definable,” Easterling continued. “You start to think that you are in trouble, then He showers you with mercy. You start to think that He is easy and permissive, then He convicts you of your sin.”
Q. For your dream vacation, where would you go?
Easterling would choose to go to Israel for a vacation.
“I have been to Israel a few times, but would love to go back many more times,” Easterling said.
Q. If someone wrote a book about your life, what would it be called?
A book about his life might be titled “He Wore the Uniforms of His Lifetime Gladly,” Easterling suggested. Easterling has enjoyed multiple different jobs and pastimes.
Q. What is a memory you have from the time you were a college student?
He was a very different person as a college student, Easterling said.
“I was lost and in a fraternity,” Easterling said. “Those years have been washed away by the precious blood of the Savior.”
Q. Do you have any advice for students who want be successful?
Easterling quoted from Romans 12: “Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
“Fill your mind and heart with the word of God,” Easterling said. “Write it on the tablet of your heart.”
