Janet Harclerode Yu

Professor

“I think SMC is a great place for people to change their lives. It’s a great bridge to go on to whatever’s next.”

“I finished my interview with Dr. Moore a week before my baby was born,” recalls Janet Yu. “I was huge and we were joking about whether I’d make it through the interview,” she says with a laugh. Well, the baby held out for another week, and six weeks after that, Janet began teaching ESL full time at SMC.

“We have so many international students who are here to learn English or transfer on to other schools. And their backgrounds are all so different,” says Janet. “Some tend to be quiet and frightened because it’s their first brush with the language. Others come from cultural backgrounds where they’re not expected to say much. And we, of course, expect them to say a lot. Interaction is the only way they’ll learn.”

In her classes Janet integrates the study of language with broader issues of the world at large. “I’m always trying to bring social and political things to the fore,” she explains. “My students need to know that they’re living here and that requires that they understand both the problems and the delights of Southern California.”

Janet says that education in general has been neglected for far too long. “It’s a little frightening,” she says. “I see the stresses at every level of education, certainly at the community college level. A place like SMC is a necessary bridge for so many people, not just immigrants. Some of my students have advanced degrees in their countries,” she continues. “For them, SMC is the bridge to a university or to reenter their careers or find a new one. And there are women in situations where they have no one to support them and… Well. There are an awful lot of people who need a place like SMC.”

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