Chris Doyle loves history: reading it, teaching it, and writing it. He enjoys conversations about ideas—with students, colleagues, parents, and even strangers at a coffee shop. On campus, he runs with the cross-country team, wrestles with his athletes, and walks with his wife, Bev, and their dogs. At Avon since 2017, Chris has launched courses in Global Studies, “Government and Crisis,” and, with English teacher Dan Hodgson, a class on inequality and protest in the Gilded Age and today. He also spearheaded the Evans History Initiative, which became a full academic conference in 2019 on slavery and its legacies at the 400th anniversary of Jamestown.
Chris holds a Ph.D. from the University of Connecticut, an M.A. from Trinity College, and a B.A. from Western Connecticut State University. His commentary has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Hartford Courant, and Education Week, and his teaching has been featured in the New York Times. He began teaching in 1985 after a short stint in sales, inspired by his lifelong passion for books and a desire to do meaningful work. “It was so much harder to teach well than I thought,” Chris recalls. “I had to draw students in with stories—so I kept studying to find more.” Now a veteran, he focuses on helping students think like historians. “Memorizing facts isn’t history. History explains the human condition,” he says. For Chris, this demanding approach creates more thoughtful people and better citizens.