Her Story
About Dr. Katherine
I've been an adjunct professor since 2011, teaching for over 13 years at Cal State Fullerton, which is like the Stanford of all the Cal States, where I taught for 9 years, and at Citrus College, a community college where I've been for 13-14 years. These are the places where I really found my stride and found challenges that made me grow professionally and personally. I also taught English as a second language for about a year or two before becoming an adjunct professor. What drew me to education was seeing that imaginary light bulb when students realize they can do and be so much more than what they ever imagined. I always knew I wanted to be a professor, I just thought it would happen when I was married and with a kid on my arm, but that's not what the Lord had planned, so I became a professor much earlier than I thought. In 2024, I started my own consulting business where I help individuals in corporate America who want to try something different or want extra income transition into teaching by converting their resumes into CVs. I've helped people like a woman retiring from the Army after 30-40 years who just received her MBA, and my best friend who was a 4th grade teacher experiencing burnout and now works at a college in an administrative role helping students transition from high school to college. My consulting business has grown to include a tutoring business where I work with kids who have 504 plans and IEPs. I'm a student advocate because just because kids are autistic or have ADHD or ADD does not mean they need to be thrown to the wayside. I'm currently becoming a certified holistic dyslexia coach. I also work as a job developer for a nonprofit that helps individuals with functional disabilities find employment. I serve as treasurer on the executive board for the Citrus College Adjunct Faculty Federation and sit on committees for DEI, Honors, and Academic Senate. Stepping away from full-time teaching has allowed me to throw myself into the administrative side, looking at what is better overall for students as a whole across the nation and across the world, not just my 20-30 students in my classroom.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Dr. Katherine
01What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best advice I've received, which important people in my life keep reminding me of, is that you have to give yourself grace. My mentors and friends tell me this constantly - you have to give yourself grace. You've never been divorced before, you've never been through these specific challenges, but you're still surviving. They remind me that this is just a day, this might just be a period in life, but what you've accomplished is so much greater than just this time frame of 6 months or 4 years. After going through my divorce and professional burnout, my best friend Dr. Dana Emerson told me, 'Catherine, you have to forgive yourself.' That advice about giving myself grace and forgiving myself has been crucial in helping me navigate both my professional challenges and personal struggles.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would say don't do it in your 20s. I would say go into a career that will set you up financially to live a comfortable life. Whether that's being a mechanic, or being a dancer, or whatever it is, not necessarily your passion, but do something that's gonna set you up comfortably so that when you've accomplished things in terms of if you want to travel or do all these things for you independently of what society tells us is the American dream - which is go to college, get your master's, get married, then once you meet this man who's supposed to pay all your bills, step back, have your kids, and just be a happy stay-at-home mom - that's not the reality. Maybe that happens 10-20% of the time. So I would say go into a career that's going to put in at least 10, 15 years that's going to set you up solidly independent of a man or this American dream. And then, when you feel like you need to step away and you've burned out from that, then go and get a credential and teach in your 40s. I basically would tell them to flip the script. When I hear some of my students say, oh, I want to be an educator, I'm like, are you sure you want to do that? Do you understand that teaching 30 years ago, when I was in elementary school, is not what it is today. We didn't have students, 5th, 6th graders going on YouTube learning how they can cut themselves because they had a bad day or they're being bullied. There's no YouTube videos watching how you can correctly hang yourself. These are all the things that we didn't have to contend with. So teaching is different. It's not the same as what it was. So the thinking has to change altogether.
03What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
I believe that I don't care what sexuality you are, what race you are, what ethnicity you are, what culture you are - every student deserves a quality education. And I not only speak it, but I think I walk the walk. When I realized that I wasn't showing up as my 100%, I stepped away because I was no longer providing a quality education that I wanted. Quality education regardless of background, mental health, learning and development - in all aspects, I am a true educator. That's what I'm about: learning and development, training, all these things. I'm a student advocate because just because kids are autistic or have ADHD or ADD does not mean they need to be thrown to the wayside. I deserve - I believe that every student deserves a quality education. When asked what's important to me about being featured, I said it's to open up more meaningful opportunities for me and what I believe in: everybody deserves a quality education, mental health for sure, quality education regardless of their background, and mental health.
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