Multifaceted vagabond

Reading professor has stories to tell

November 23, 2009
by Maribel Justo | Guest Writer

Photo by Jana Hendler

Not too many people can say they have lived and taught in South Korea. Not too many people can say they’ve lived in Michigan, Texas and Georgia.

Who can say those things? City College reading professor Karen Burrell.

Best known for her enthusiasm and optimism in teaching, little is known about her adventures before being a professor.

“Her hobbies are really surprising,” City College student Francisco Lizarraga says. “She tells me how she’s taken martial arts and learned how to build furniture. She’s traveled around the world and shaped her entire career and life with the globe.”

Living life on the constant move is all she’s ever known. For most of her childhood, Burrell, 58, says she always found herself some place new every year because of her father’s job: Los Angeles, Washington, St. Louis.

Now, her philosophy about moving has changed. “You go where the school is,” says Burrell, hired in 2008 as a full-time City College reading professor. “There’s no such thing as one career anymore.”

She’s one to talk. Not only was she a former payroll clerk, she was also a former instructor for truck drivers. You think that’s interesting? To top it all off, she was also a former lawyer. Anything you can think of, she’s probably done. She’s made a living out of what seems to be everything, and she says she owes it all to education and knowledge.

While she loves to learn new things, rarely does she get the chance to have free time. She says the closest thing she’s done for fun recently was attend a Celtic festival in Grass Valley via RV. And if there’s any time left to spare, she’ll relax with a good romance or science fiction novel.

Although her life is hectic, at the end of the day her passion for teaching continues to be a motivation for her students.

“If I had a different teacher, I wouldn’t have achieved an A,” says ENGRD 110 student Aziz Muhaiudin. “She helped me be the best I could be.”

Even after traveling the world and back, Burrell still loves to teach. “The most fun is watching the light bulb go off,” she says. “Very few things are yours forever, but what you learn is yours forever.”