English is more than just words on a screen or a piece of paper. This is especially true to English Professor Emily Vaughn, who strives to create a space for students to make them feel safe and confident. She comments, “Your thoughts are important, your ideas are important, what you have to say is important. I want students to feel like they are supposed to be here.”

Vaughn has been teaching for 21 years, several of which were spent as an adjunct professor at various other colleges like California State University, Fresno as well as Reedley College. She has spent the last 6 years as a tenured professor here at College of the Sequoias. As a college student, she began in Reedley College before studying abroad in London, and eventually earning her Bachelor of Arts and Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing degrees at CSU Fresno. She noted, “I took a long time because I was always taking classes because I was interested in so many different topics.”

During grad school in Fresno, Vaughn began working as a TA, an experience that would go on to influence her decision to teach. She also credited her mentors who helped model the type of teaching she wanted to do. To Vaughn, teaching is fluid, and a good teacher is always improving and adapting. She said,

“There is a lot more freedom to [teaching] than people realize. It was intimidating trying to fit into a specific role, or when people expect you to be a certain thing. It can also feel intimidating being a woman or person of color in academic spaces. You get a little bit of imposter syndrome, like you don’t belong here. It took a few years to get over the imposter syndrome, to feel like I belong here, but I am just as qualified as everyone else.”

One of her favorite parts of the job are the individual connections with her students, helping them understand that they are heard or seen. This allows her to give her
students the confidence to feel like they belong here and deserve an education. Creating a supportive community is one part of what Vaughn attributes to her effective teaching style. She adds,

“… I mean I am a writing instructor, so I am trying to help [the students] become more confident writers. But when you get confident with yourself as a writer, I feel like it makes you more confident in general. Creating a community also helps with making them more confident in academic spaces, like they belong here. A lot of them start off unsure of themselves, especially in writing class, because to share your writing you have to be vulnerable.”

Vaughn also advocates for minority groups, teaching Women’s and Chicano Literature, and stressing the importance such topics. Being a woman of color herself, she has dealt with the issues that arise with intersectionality and feels responsible as an educator to fill in those gaps of understanding for students. She also encourages students to read books by women and people of color as it is important for students to understand the cultures and backgrounds of those around them or themselves. She strives to break the stereotypes behind being a professor, stating:  “When you picture a professor, you picture a man with a briefcase, you don’t imagine a middle-aged Latina lady with a bunch of tattoos.”