Interview with Dr. Carmen Arellano
A lifelong learner, passionate, and committed to her community, Dr. Carmen Arellano sat down with our interviewer in mid-February of 2025 to talk about her valuable life experiences and how they have shaped her into the person she is today. St. Augustine College has been a consistent source of inspiration for her, ever since she enrolled in their associate’s degree program while raising a child. Since then she has received two PhDs and utilizes clinical psychology in her pedagogy to help inspire her students to be the best versions of themselves, making sure to give back to the community and teach the next generation of St. Augustine students.
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
I am the campus Dean here at Saint Augustine College. I am also in charge of the mission ministry, and starting January 2024, I’m also the Dean of Student Services. have a doctoral degree in clinical psychology, and in October of 2024, last year, I graduated with a second PhD in international psychology. That’s how much I love education, and that is thanks to the seeds that Saint Augustine College had planted in me.
I came here back in 1987. I was attracted to this institution, as it is a bilingual institution, and I was happy to be in an institution where I could speak Spanish. Not that I had any problems speaking English, but when you go back to your mother tongue, you learn differently. You understand things differently. I was attracted to this institution, and the professors at that time were all bilingual.
A second piece that attracted me to this institution was the fact that there was a daycare center, and that was a big plus, not only for myself but for other mothers who, if not for the daycare center, would have not acquired a career or a higher education. So that was one of the attractions about this institution, having the opportunity of bringing my daughter with me and knowing that she had quality care in the same building where I was taking my courses, and then during break I could go check up on her. That was one of the biggest benefits of St. Augustine. I do hope to one day reopen the daycare, as it was so beneficial to many parents to have an institution that also had a daycare.
So during the time that I was finishing my bachelor’s degree, I started teaching GED courses at St. Augustine. Since 1987 I have never left the college either as a student, then as an instructor for GED Friday night, teaching in English, and Saturday in Spanish. It was a good thing that I was doing for my community, and myself. Giving back and still feeling that I was at home because St. Augustine had been my home since I was student.
Who has inspired and influenced you?
St. Augustine’s founder, Dr. Carlos Plazas, has been an inspiration for me in many ways. He was our president for many years, a clinical psychologist, and I remember thinking, I want to be that. I wanted to be someone who is enrolled in higher education and helps others, especially as a clinical psychologist. So many of the things that I am right now are because of Dr. Carlos Plazas. He’s the one that planted that seed.
How has your perspective of teaching evolved over the years? How has teaching in Spanish influenced your teaching methods?
We start students with learning in Spanish because we want our students to learn new words and new terminology in Spanish first. In psychology, abnormal psychology, medication, or even when learning mental health illnesses, it is easier for someone to learn terminology in their native language and then transition to more advanced classes in Spanish while learning English at the same time. Dr. Plazas precisely thought of that before founding St. Augustine.
You need to adjust your teaching methodology to the learning ability of the people whom you are teaching, for them to understand, and for them to develop an interest. So, when I started teaching GED, I knew I needed to adjust, and in the process, I used my hands. This is part of our Latin American way of teaching. We use our hands to assist us in what we are trying to transmit.
And then I switch theories when I see that my students are more advanced learners and are ready for that next step in their academic career.
You mentioned being a clinical psychologist. How has this influenced your pedagogy and your methods of teaching?
I do remember when I tested my students on mental health terminology. The tools for this test included some requirements that many students have never needed before, even as adults. If you grow up in an Indigenous area where you’ve never seen a crayon, where you’ve never seen a puzzle, and here you come to the US, and because you don’t know English, you are given a mental health test or an educational test to assess your skillset. You are given a crayon when you have never used one because, in your homeland, you never had the opportunity. So you don’t know about crayons. You don’t know how to draw with a crayon.
In my way of teaching, I go back and see where the person is coming from. Is this an individual from a rural area? Is this an individual who is from Central America, from Guatemala, from Mexico, who doesn’t speak Spanish clearly because they speak their dialect? They speak Tarahumara, for example, or they speak Mayan or Garífuna from Guatemala. So a lot of times you use drawings. This is where I learn from my students. I need to not only analyze the population that is learning from me but to listen to them and try to build a bridge to connect us.
They can be so smart in many other ways. More right brain than left brain, because that’s how they grew up. My background in psychology has helped a lot in planting that seed of appreciation for higher learning and that there are no barriers given someone’s age.
How has SAC changed?
We have become more international, far more international, with the careers that we currently offer. For example, the Respiratory Therapy program is designed around a career that attracts many individuals, many international students from Southeast Asia. This Respiratory Therapy program attracts many students from India, from Pakistan, many of our professors, and many of the professors that we now have also are more international, from the Middle East and Africa.
This is why I became more interested in international psychology because I wanted to internationalize myself. We are more diverse and more international than ever before. Nonetheless, we continue to preserve our seeds, preserving our pillars: Spanish-speaking and bilingual. But we happily welcome these new students.
What surprised you about teaching at St. Augustine College?
One thing I love is learning from my students. I am always learning from my students. Our classes usually begin at 6:30 and end at 9:50, but there were times that at 10 p.m., my students, all 30, were still sitting down and talking, learning from each other. They would share their life experiences, and experiences with whatever psychology chapter we had to covered that night and apply that chapter to their personal lives. So that surprised me. It surprised me that in teaching, I was learning as well.
The second surprise was how quickly we went online during the pandemic. I thought online learning was never going to be possible. The pandemic taught us something different, and in 10 days, we remained open, with no need to close. St. Augustine remains open and provides an education because in 10 days our faculty learned how to teach entirely online. I was surprised. I was surprised by the resiliency of our then adjunct faculty, our resident faculty, in how fast we needed to transition to remain available for teaching and learning.
