UNC Professor Hohn teaches students to improvise in life

With improvisation, there are no plans.

Greg Hohn, a business school adjunct lecturer, never planned on becoming an improvisation artist.

He graduated with a degree in English from UNC in 1985 and worked four years in journalism before auditioning for the Transactors, the improv group he now leads.

By trial and error, Hohn began to develop the concept of applying improvisation to real life. For the past 10 years, he’s taken this skill to the classroom, teaching students how to apply improv to their careers.

His style of improv isn’t meant as entertainment but forces students to make conversation without any preparation.

Hohn said he took the class activities with the most depth and put them together to create the course, which now evolves constantly.

“The applied improv curriculum that I teach comes out of my experiences,” he said. “My students told me that they were using what they learned in class in outside situations, and I started thinking, that makes sense.”

Hohn was asked by the business school dean, Jim Dean, to teach the class 10 years ago as a part of the business communications program at UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School. The school was looking for an innovative curriculum, and Hohn agreed.

The course, taught at UNC and Duke University, relies on the fast-paced, on-the-spot thinking that defines improvisation. By applying these concepts to business, the class helps students to think on their feet.

Jeff Cornell, associate chairman of the Department of Dramatic Art, said improvisation creates honest response in people.

“It demands there be an awareness of what’s happening and a response to the circumstance,” Cornell said. “In that sense, it demands authenticity and truth, hopefully some wit, but at the core, authentic-ness.”

The comedic improvisation most students are familiar with, by groups like CHiPS, is different than improvisation used in Hohn’s teaching, Cornell said.

“It involves similar skills, but in an acting class, improv tests relationships,” Cornell explained. “It’s not for entertainment; it’s a rehearsal — a tool used for investigating.”

Hohn teaches the improvisation skills he learned in the theater.

“One of the first things I tell students is just to come in and try to be honest,” Hohn said. “Don’t worry about being funny or clever or anything like that. If you just be yourself, you can be funny or clever.”

Angela Czahor, a 2009 Duke graduate, had tried to take Hohn’s “Communication, Improv, and Business” class multiple times.

“I’m actually glad I didn’t get in until my senior year,” Czahor wrote in an e-mail. “The practice and theory was fresh in my mind during job search and recruitment.”

Czahor says Hohn’s class was a mix of the expected and unexpected exercises, all of which helped her communication skills to improve.

“Every conversation is different and can veer off into many directions based on what the customer says,” she said. “Greg’s class helped me prepare for that.”

Heidi Schultz, area chairwoman for the management and corporate communication department of the business school, said the classes help develop fun conversation skills.

“Our students get a lot of experience with analytical, hard skills,” she said. “This class allows them to develop those other skills focused on communication.”

After developing the applied improv for 10 years, Hohn says he feels fortunate about the development and influence of his career.

Professors at other schools have asked about starting their own programs, Hohn said.

“They ask, ‘How did you do it?’ I stuck to it and I got lucky, I suppose,” he said. “I just try to live the improviser’s life.”



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