CEDARVILLE — Dr. Cliff Fawcett is a nurse practitioner and professor at Cedarville University, but there is more to him than meets the eye.

Fawcett, coordinator of the MSN and DNP family nurse practitioner track and associate professor of nursing at Cedarville University, can be found canoeing or kayaking along a river in his free time. As an educator, Fawcett often looks for opportunities to teach, including when he documents his recent canoe trips or provides insight information for water fun and safety on his YouTube channel. His channel, “Cliff Fawcett,” has received more than 79,000 views since he first launched the site in 2017. His most popular video, “Canoe or Kayak? Style or Function,” has 38,000 hours of watch time.

Even though his kayak and canoe videos have become popular with outdoor enthusiasts, he didn’t begin filming his adventures with popularity in mind.

When Fawcett bought a kayak and began paddling with his wife and three children, he was struck by the lack of information about his new favorite hobby. When he moved to Ohio to begin teaching at Cedarville University, he realized that many people thought of canoeing and kayaking as inaccessible and expensive. Fawcett wanted to correct that narrative.

“The theme of my channel is spreading the word that paddling is a really fun thing to do, if you do it the right way,” said Fawcett.

He began by simply taking his camera along on his paddling trips to places like Stillwater River and the Great Miami River in southwest Ohio. From there, his passion for this hobby grew significantly.

Fawcett began to invest more time into making videos by taking online courses to educate himself and coming up with stories to make videos about. He greatly enjoys making videos, but also knows that his family and work as a professor and nurse practitioner comes first.

“My videos may never make a profit or get a ton of views, and that’s OK,” Fawcett said. “All I want is to enjoy paddling and help others have fun and enjoy it too.”

Fawcett has also been able to integrate his developed knowledge of video technology into the classroom. As the program coordinator for the fully online nurse practitioner program at Cedarville, Fawcett has increased the quality of the online experience with knowledge he gained from shooting videos about kayaks and canoes. He now makes video using a small camera to teach students how to do advanced physical assessments and can easily assist them with their own video quality.

In another YouTube channel by Fawcett, “A Ride in the Country,” he shares his interest in motorcycles and off-roading with anyone who is interested in hearing his stories.

This nurse by trade has become an outdoor expert. And, he uses all of these experiences to educate students and outdoor enthusiasts in a contemporary way.