#i2amru (I, Too, Am Reinhardt) Volume 1 Number 1 | Page 70

An Inspirational
Teacher: Professora
Vivian Baxter
By: Ally Hurd
“The beauty of the world lies in the
diversity of its people” is an often-seen quotation on social media
these days. To illustrate it, we can
look at the microcosm of Reinhardt
University, which makes just one
small but significant contribution
to this diverse world we live in
today.
Twenty five years ago, Reinhardt
University and its surrounding
community were nowhere near as
culturally aware and diverse as they
are today, and a huge part of that
comes from the efforts of a special
professor, Vivian Baxter.
Baxter’s life started out in Cuba.
However, at the age of three in
1959, she and her family had to
pull up roots and move to Panama, in Central America, because
of the results of the Revolution in
Cuba. The Cuban Revolution was
an armed revolt conducted by Fidel
Castro’s 26th of July Movement and
its allies against the government of
Cuban President, Fulgencio Batista.
The Revolution began in July 1953
and continued sporadically until
the Communist rebels, led by Fidel
Castro, finally ousted Batista on
New Year’s Day of 1959, replacing
the former government with a revolutionary socialist state.
While living in Panama, Baxter
completed grade school and, in the
process, learned bilingually because
her mother spoke French and her

70

father spoke Spanish. She also
grew up with an older sister who
now works at a federal court as a
translator and happens to be trilingual. Her father was an Episcopal
Bishop who had a friend that was a
religion professor at Berry College
in Rome, Georgia—which proved
to be helpful when Baxter was
thinking about colleges.
Baxter decided to visit Berry
College, and she ended up loving
the school, which helped her to
make the final decision to attend.
A Spanish teaching degree was her
goal during her college years at
Berry.

teaching at Reinhardt University in
Waleska, Georgia, which at that time
was only a two-year college.
Today, Baxter has officially reached her
25th year mark in teaching at RU, and
the Spanish and French language offerings have tremendously grown under
Baxter’s committed leadership. She also
helped develop the World Languages
and Cultures degree program, which
allows students to pursue a degree in
foreign languages, and students may
now minor in Spanish as well.
Another one of her quality contributions to Reinhardt has been the
memorable study abroad trips she has
planned and carried out for students
and other professors. To Baxter, study
abroad is the highlight of learning foreign languages, and she thoroughly enjoys getting to travel and experiencing
these trips. She also says that, by participating in study abroad, the learning
of the language all comes together and
you get to really understand the culture

Having succeeded in her goal,
Baxter then moved on to Houston,
Texas, where she taught middle-school Spanish. Not only was
Texas the start of her career, but it
was the beginning of own family
as well. She got the luck of the
draw and the best of both worlds
by having a son and a daughter.
Around 1990, she and her family
moved back to Georgia, but this
time to Cartersville. Teaching her
children the Spanish language at
a very young age was important
to her, and it just so happened to
work out that, when they started
kindergarten in Cartersville, they
could begin learning the beautiful
language that is so much a part
of who she is. This was also the
period of time when she began

Professora Baxter
teaching the class a
Spanish grammar lesson.

and live through the language.
Watching her students learn the
language and travel to experience
the culture is h ow it all connects for
them. Baxter has a passion for teaching, and seeing it all put together in
action makes her the happiest.
Nine years ago, Baxter was diagnosed
with one of everyone’s worst nightmares: breast cancer. The cancer
was treated, but it made its way back
into her body years later. She is now
affected by breast cancer again and is
having to attend many doctor appointments and go through numerous treatments. This is something
that no one should ever have to go
through, but Baxter’s life motto is to
“always move forward, and to never
let anything set you back.”
To me, Vivian Baxter is one of the
most positive, influential, and dedicated teachers I have ever had. Not
only does she make Spanish a fun
and easy language to learn, but she
also is the reason I was inspired to
minor in Spanish. I have officially
decided to make Spanish my second
language, and with her guidance and
commitment to be my professor, I
know I will succeed.
David Brown, another one of her
students, has the same perspective
of Baxter as I do. He says he enjoys
Spanish so much more now that she
is his professor, and he feels that the
way she teaches the language helps
him to understand it in a much
easier and effective way. One of the
strengths he says she has is “her motivation to keep the class going even
though she has to go through the
difficulties of having breast cancer
and having to miss class sometimes.”
Every time she has to miss a class,
she apologizes, because her passion is
helping students learn the language,

and she doesn’t want them to get
behind. One of the good things
about Reinhardt is that all of the
students here tend to be caring
and understand if a professor has
to miss out on class sometimes,
and we do nothing but support her
through all of her treatments.
Teaching at Reinhardt has been
such a blessing to her, because
in Texas she had to teach middle
school grades, but here she has the
privilege to teach older students; it
is more flexible and, most importantly, creates close relationships
with her students.
Baxter has seen much growth and
change during her years at Reinhardt. “Reinhardt and the community around it have completely
changed over the past 25 years,” she
says. There is now more of a Hispanic cultural presence on campus,
and she has really enjoyed seeing
the growth in cultural diversity.

Being bilingual can really help
with job opportunities, and it just
so happens that every job her own
children have received was because
of their Spanish-speaking background. This has helped them in
their careers by leaps and bounds.
Her daughter is now a successful
nurse, and her son has two children
of his own, one who is six and a
younger one who is four years old.
Of course, with this family, Professor Baxter and her son began
to speak and teach her grandchildren Spanish right from the get
go, and they eventually want them
to become fluent. Her grandson
Braden’s teacher happens to be a
Reinhardt alumna. What a small
world, right?

Professor Vivian Baxter is one of
the strongest women I know, and
she does nothing but bring great
things to this campus. She is not
only a daughter, mother,
and a grandmother,
The one who inspired me to make
friend, and a
Spanish my second language.mother, friend,
cancer survivor, but she
is also is also
one of the
best professors at Reinhardt University. She has
contributed
so much to
this school
and accomplished many
great things
throughout
her life.

Gracias,
Professora!

(Photos courtesy of Ally Hurd)

71