By Lu Ann Thompson
person she sees looking back at her. I, too, wanted to
look in the mirror and feel comfortable with my
choices, so I chose to teach English and trust that the
money would follow.
Assistant Professor
Communication Services
Northeast Campus
How did you choose higher education vs public
school?
What brought you to TCC as a student?
Because I wanted to teach English, I considered
teaching middle or high school, but one day, I
walked in to the Metro Campus just to explore what
an interested person with a bachelor’s degree in
English, and working on a Master’s degree, needed
to do to teach at TCC. I conducted an unplanned
informational interview with Mary Walker, whom I
did not know at the time, and I asked her how I
should prepare.
I began my education as a chemistry major at TU. I
then changed my major to math before deciding on
English as my major. Like many of our students, I
was working seventy hours a week, yet the expense
of taking so many classes added up, so I stopped
taking classes until I could fully concentrate on my
education—even though I had earned 84 hours toward finishing my English major there. In my early
twenties, I worked as a full-time manager at Sipes’
Food Market, so the long hours as a manager conflicted with my studying at the University of Tulsa. I
made a purposeful decision to stop out from school
until I could make education my first priority. At
the age of twenty-five, I started at American Airlines; I needed a degree to move up in the company
and be successful, so because I had 84 credit hours
from TU, I turned to TCC to earn an Associate of
Arts in English. I continued working at American
Airlines for eleven years. The company supported
me by transferring me from Dallas to Tulsa so that I
could work part-time for them while completing my
B.A. in English from NSU and my Master’s degree
from OSU.
She asked me the following standard interview
question: “Who would benefit most from being in
your classroom?”
I answered, “Students who have struggled to get an
education, who have overcome barriers but have
stuck with it and want to make something of their
lives. I can help those students.”
She asked, “Are you more interested in Writing I or
Writing II?”
I said, “For me to understand what students are going through, I would have to start with Writing I
and move up to Writing II.”
She said, “Good. So, I have a Writing I class that
would be perfect for you.”
Why did you choose English as a major?
An English teacher helped me with an assignment
entitled, “What do you want to do with your life?”
At that time, I was a math major, but I liked people,
liked talking with people, helping them think and
learn and evaluate. That happens in math, but English is more about exploring ideas, which fits me so
much better; however, I often wondered how I
could grade all of those English papers and make
enough money to survive if I chose to teach English.
The English assignment helped me explore my purpose for teaching: should my career choice be about
money and time or about personal and spiritual satisfaction? Although I don’t listen to Lady Gaga’s
music, I like a statement I recently heard during one
of her interviews about looking in the mirror and
knowing that she can go to bed every night with the
I asked, “Did I just get hired?”
She said, “Yes, you did.”
I went in for information about teaching at TCC,
and to my shock, I left with a job! A year later in
2001, a full-time position became available, and I
applied. I have been at TCC as full-time English faculty for fourteen years.
So then, did you go through ATE as a new faculty
member?
ATE began in 2000. I was in the 2001 cohort. By the
second year, the training was individualized so that
we could explore topics of personal interest. Because of ATE, I met Lynnda Brown who taught
Eighth Floor classes, and even though I was hired to
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