As one of Cal Lutheran’s undergraduate students, I can honestly say that one of the best parts about being a student here is the genuinely amazing professors we get the privilege to connect with, to learn from, and to talk to. But I never thought I would get the opportunity to talk to the professors involved in our graduate program here, and after talking to Dr. Trudy Tuttle Arriaga, I can say they are just as amazing as the undergraduate professors. Dr. Arriaga was recently named Professor of Education of the Year by The Association of California School Administrators. Photo courtesy of California Lutheran University
Her Campus Cal Lutheran: How long have you been teaching?
Dr. Trudy Tuttle Arriaga: I have been teaching at the university level since 1993 when I got my doctorate at USC, I started teaching right away. But my career has been for over 35 years in K-12 education.
HCCLU: When did you realize you wanted to teach? Or was it a career you always knew you wanted to pursue?
TA: I think I grew up knowing that I wanted to be a teacher. I was a teacher in migrant education, a teacher in special education, at the elementary level, and at the middle school level. I eventually went into educational leadership where I was a high school principal and an elementary school principal. I was superintendent of a school district for 14 years.
HCCLU: Speaking of your time as a superintendent, I know you were the first female superintendent for the Ventura Unified School District, were there any struggles you faced when getting to that position?
TA: Many. There are some, you may call them myths or misperceptions, but my experiences have been some realities of being a female leader. I always felt the need to excel at everything I did and part of that was based on my gender. Certain comments and attitudes about my leadership from “you wear your heart on your sleeve” to “you have to be strong” where I feel like those are actually equated as a weakness, I felt that those are some of my greatest qualities and that was that I absolutely wear my heart on my sleeve. When you’re caring for, in my case, 18,000 children and a hundred employees, I absolutely cared about the well-being of each of them. So there were times, many times, over the years when I found that I was either facing a stereotype or an over generalization or a bias because of my gender.
HCCLU: Do you have any advice for women who plan to go into fields of leadership or fields that predominately consist of men?
TA: My advice is to stay true to yourself, that whatever it is supposed to look like to be an attorney or to be a superintendent is not at all a reality. To bring yourself, and if your gender is a defining part of yourself, bring that into your position. I also think that as females in positions that are not generally represented equally, we have a lot of responsibility to mentor each other. We also have a responsibility to pull other females up with us and I think there’s a lot of responsibility to ensure when stereotypes or biases are a part of an organization that we be the teachers to fight against those stereotypes and biases. I always tell my own daughters “the only thing you can control are your own responses.” So when someone said to me, when he came to meet with me, I was the superintendent, I brought him coffee, I brought him cream and sugar and I finally sat down with him in my office and said “how can I help you?” and he said “with all due respect, I want to meet with the superintendent” and I said “well, I am the superintendent.” And he said in reply “Oh, well I just assumed” and I said “well tell me what your assumption was. Was it because I got you coffee, was it because I greeted you warmly, or was it because I’m a female? I don’t mean to put you on the spot, I don’t mean to be disrespectful but I might encourage you in the future to examine your biases about who’s going to be the president of the bank, or the attorney that’s going to be working with you, or the superintendent of the school district.”
HCCLU: What subjects do you teach?
TA: I teach in the graduate school of education and I teach in the ed leadership department and so I teach masters for the most part. Masters and some doctoral classes for our students who are working towards their masters or doctorates in educational leadership. Generally speaking, those in masters programs are teachers who are working towards leadership credentials and a masters in leadership. They generally aspire to be in positions of leadership, like a principal, a coordinator, a director, a superintendent, or an assistant principal. Students in doctoral programs are normally already in leadership positions but want to excel academically.
HCCLU: Can you tell me more about the book you co-wrote “Opening Doors: An Implementation Template for Cultural Proficiency?”
TA: The foundation of my leadership throughout my career in the K-12 system was really built around cultural proficiency and there’s a framework of cultural proficiency that’s simply stated. It is a book that helps others, it’s really written for educators: the principal, the superintendent, the lead of an organization, to really examine the organization through the lens of cultural proficiency and what that really means is through the lens of equity, access, and opportunity for every individual. The opening doors is a metaphor that I used in my career that was all about is the door open for a student or is it closed, is it wide open for some or is it slammed shut for others or is it cracked open for a few? For example, you develop an after school program for our district and you’re really excited about that because now the door is open for an after school program, but yet you don’t provide transportation. In result, the door is open for students who have either their own transportation or parents who will pick them up at 6 o’clock in the evening. But it’s closed for many students who are bus riders and that bus is there only ticket home, they don’t have cars, and they have parents who are working until 8 o’clock at night. So the book is about examining everything we do about our policies and our procedures, whether it’s in personnel, in business, in disciplining a child, and looking at everything we do with a culturally proficient lens.
HCCLU: Is it challenging to look at every single aspect?
TA: It’s very hard, it takes time and it’s much easier to have black and white rules that are just hard, fast rules. The presence of zero tolerance rules or people who say “this is the way we’ve always done it” or “why do we need to change” or “things are good, they’re great the way they are” makes it difficult. So to say no and decide to take the time and the energy and the skill set to look at everything we do truly is difficult. To look at how we discipline our high school students, how we grade, the homewok that we give, if we’re giving homework that requires financial resources in the home, we have then eliminated the success of a population of students who do not have financial resources in their homes. And the question is then, do you lower the expectations for all? The answer is no, you do not lower expectations. What you do is keep the library open until 9 o’clock at night at the high school and you make sure that computers are available. There are ways to say “no we are not lowering our expectations but we’re going to make it a level playing field for every student.” So it’s hard work and it takes a lot of time and energy and sometimes, a lot of money and resorces to do the right thing for all children.
HCCLU: Have you seen culturally proficient changes in the education system?
TA: I have seen significant changes over time. Not only did we see changes that were quantifiable results like suspension decreases, explusion decreases, attendance increases, academic performance increases, across the board, in all of our data, in everything over time things seem to be going in the right direction. But I saw many changes that were not quantifiable, changes like the fact that we’ve provided transportation to back to school nights for our parents; it’s not quantifiable but over time I could see who was at back to school nights and all of our parents were there, not just some. Or the fact that we opened up the prom at the high school level for any student who wanted to attend, with anyone they wanted to attend with, so you could go by yourself or with a group. A date of the opposite sex or the date of the same sex. So when I go to the prom and I look around and see who’s there, that’s not quanitifiable, but that tells me that the decisions that we were making over time were opening the doors for families and students.
HCCLU: How does it feel to see your life’s work in action?
TA: Fabulous, nothing better. The job of the superintendent is a very, very diificult job. It’s 24/7 and it’s very stressful; there’s a lot of decisions that can impact the lives of people. But when all is said and done, if you’ve made your decisions with a culturally proficient lens, I can look back at my career and be really satisfied and know that students were served, families and communities were served in a way that they, perhaps, wouldn’t have been had we not focused our leadership.
HCCLU: Do you have any regrets at all?
TA: I have my own children and my advice is to be very cautious about not taking away from the people you love. I worked very hard and I was gone a lot and I was often taking care of other peoples’ children. But I never missed a back to school night for my own kids, I never missed a dance production, I think I managed. But now I have grandchildren and I think to myself that I was gone a lot. But, I would never say that to dissuade a woman; I would say that to a man as well, to be cautious. There are men who historically have not been present because they work so hard outside of the home, so I think that’s a caution for every parent, not just a woman.
HCCLU: You’ve been named State Administrator of the Year, 2015 Woman of the Year, Ventura’s Citizen of the Year, and presented with the Marcus Foster Memorial Award for Administrator Excellence. Does it feel different every time you’re awarded or been named with these titles?
TA: Every time I’ve felt really honored and really privileged because I always feel like I’m representing these outstanding people. So who am I to get these awards, but when I am awarded something, it’s a privilege and an honor to me. I always accept awards on behalf of others; I did not do anything by myself, nothing was achieved because I did something. I think what I’m really good at is surrounding myself with great people. So as the superintendent, all those awards I got during that time, I surrounded myself with really great people, so there’s nothing that I did that I did by myself. Whether it’s thinking about my mother, my husband, the assistant superintendent, my board member. Everyone was supportive and helped me to achieve. So I think when I get awards, I think about people who have helped to achieve.
HCCLU: You were named Professor of Education of the Year, was this where you thought you would be? Is it at all humbling to know that people are thinking of you in this light?
TA: Not at all, when I went into my second chapter, I thought this was my quiet time. My time to do research, and work with students who are emerging leaders, I thought the awards were over. It is very humbling, this one particularly. Because this is not my life work, this is a chapter in my life. This one was unexpected for me.
HCCLU: Who would you say is your biggest inspiration?
TA: I have a lot of whos. I was fortunate to be raised by incredible parents, there was nothing about that that I earned, I was just gifted that. My mother is 94 years old, she’s still in book clubs; she is knowledgable, she is kind, she is compassionate, she is involved, she is active, everything about her is an inspiration to me. The people I’ve worked with over the years are inspirational. But the people I get the most inspiration from are the students and now it’s university students. I get a huge charge out of getting an e-mail this week that one of our students who just graduated was just appointed as assistant principal and another was just appointed as the coordinator of special ed in the Ojai high school district and that to me is inspirational. Before it was the K-12 students, when the high school student would get accepted into a university or when I would watch them onstage perform drama productions. It’s inspirational to me to be part of their lives in a small way.
HCCLU: Is there a big difference between the personalities or attitudes you see in the K-12 students versus the university level students?
TA: I work with masters and doctoral students so they are for the most part, paying for their education, working full-time, raising families. So many of them are very serious students and they have high expectations, which they should of their instructors. They are saying I am giving up my time and my resources to earn this masters degree so I am expecting that the instructor give me everything that I need. So that dynamic is a little different than high school, where students are, as they should be, learning about themselves. Many of them are serious students but in addition to being serious students, their parents provide for them and they have all the life ahead of them.
HCCLU: Have you learned anything from your students?
TA: I learn from my students every day and I learned from my students in the K-12 system as well. Students have not only taught me knowledge and expertise that they have that I don’t have, but just learning from their life stories. This year, I had a student who had eight children and now he’s entered into our doctoral program and I’m amazed. Or the masters student who lost her mother in the middle of the program or the masters student who was recently divorced and didn’t anticipate that and is going through these huge life changes. Those are the stories that have helped me learn from my students by watching how they navigate through life.
HCCLU: Where do you want to go from here? Do you have any more plans?
TA: In addition to being full time at Cal Lu. I’m really fortunate to be at Cal Lu because Cal Lutheran also has afforded me and really encouraged me the opportunity to do additional work and so with my book “Openin Doors: A Implementational Template to Cultural Proficiency” I spent quite a bit of time traveling. I’m traveling all over the United States, working with K-12 school districts and working with them in terms of how to implement the lens of cultural proficiency in their district. Cal Lutheran believes in research and being out in the field and encourages their instructors to not just be here, in an office, but also outside and impacting communities. In my case, it has been the opportunity to impact the United States. I am in the process of sending a manuscript for a second book; interestingly enough, it’s a book about female leadership. It’s about looking through the lens of cultural proficiency through a female leader.
HCCLU: Do you have a fondest memory from all of your years of teaching or from being a superintendent?
TA: One of my fondest memories was as an elementary school principal and I entered the school and realized I was inheriting the culture of the school. There were 700 children and they all referred to the adults by their last names, so it was ‘Dr. Arriaga’ or ‘ Mrs. Smith’ or whatever the case may be, with the exception of one adult. They referred to him by his first name and I was curious about that; after I had been there for about a month, I went to that adult and asked “how is it that the children call you by your first name?” He said not to worry about it because it had always been like that, he had been there for 20 years and it was always that way. And I said as the new principal, I strongly felt that needed to change, that I wasn’t comfortable with that exception. By the way, he happened to be the custodian of our school; he was the eldest on campus and he retired when he was 85. He was the only African American male on our campus. So for the children, little five year olds, to refer to him as ‘Henry’ just seemed to me to be a message that was not what I wanted our children to have. So we had an assembly and I told the children that we would refer to Henry as Mr. Callaway and we practiced saying his last name and I told the teachers to please not refer to him as Henry anymore as well. Within a week, it was changed and he was referred to as Mr. Callaway and I never heard Henry again. When Mr. Callaway retired, I had his retirement party at my home and by then I was the superintendent. As I was walking him out to the car, he looked at me and said that the best day of his career was the day he became Mr. Callaway. And I didn’t remember that assembly until I looked at him and he said “don’t you remember the assembly, the day I became Mr. Callaway?” Then it all came back to me. So the reason that that is one of my fondest memories is because it defined my leadership in terms of don’t keep walking when you see something that isn’t right. Always pause or stop because for a student, you could make it the best day of their week, the best hour of their day, and in Mr. Callaway’s case, it was the best day of his career. Sometimes, we don’t even know we’re making that kind of an impact on people. Realizing that something that was a blink on my radar screen was a huge difference for him was a defining moment.
HCCLU: What’s the biggest struggle that you’ve faced?
TA: In the K-12 system, the biggest struggle was the resources. California has historically not provided the resources our children need and deserve, when you compare California to other states in the nation, it’s very quantifiable. So we were constantly required to leverage resources, maximize resources, make reductions, and it’s a difficult challenge when you know that students need this counseling program and that it’s working and it’s the right thing to do, but the dollars are taken from you. Then you have to figure out either you have to eliminate it and not do what’s best for students or you take something else away to put the money in another program. Then there’s the challenge of paying people, compensating people for their value. I also do not think that teachers in this state are paid nor the bus drivers or the people who work so incredibly hard are paid to the level of their value. So I was always trying to enhance salaries, enhance compensation, but at the same time, knowing that the mission of the school district was to provide the students with resources to succeed.
HCCLU: Do you know why California is so different from other states? Is it because of how large we are as a state, the social stigma we have towards those in the education system, or another factor?
TA: Historically, the voters of California have made decisions that have not been made in the best interest of children and over time we have taken money from children. People in California talk a lot about not raising taxes and I don’t like to pay taxes either, but not at the expense of our children. I’d rather pay taxes than take away resources from our children. I was raised in California so when I was a child at the elementary level, we were fifth in the nation. When I became superintendent we were 48th in the nation. So how dare me give less to the children of today than what I got. Over time, the issue is resistance to taxes and California is an incredibly wealthy state, in my opinion, there is absolutely no excuse for our children not to be in the top five. But we have people who move out of California because they don’t want to pay the taxes, so to me, it’s not such so much as the presence of money, rather it’s the priority we have as a state. If the priority is not our children, I think we’re in deep trouble.
HCCLU: Is there a favorite quote you have in terms of teaching or that you’ve used in your approach to teaching?
TA: One of my favorite quotes, I don’t know who said it, is “Rules without relationships lead to rebellion.” You can make all the rules you want but if you haven’t established a relationship, people will rebel against your rules. So you do have to establish relationships first, you have to build confidence and trust, you have to show people, not just tell people, what you value and then once relationships are established then decisions and actions can be made. Another one of my favorite quotes is from Margaret Mead: “Never doubt that a thoughtful group of committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that has.” I believe in that strongly. Get involved; whether it’s a group of five or a group of two million, it’s the only thing that’s changed the world. I believe that right now, more than ever, in our nation that this quote has to be true. I am very concerned about what’s happening on a national level and I am very concerned about the decisions and the behavior and the attitude of our new President. Our children are watching and what are they seeing? I believe that they are seeing bigotry, negativity, deceit, and divisiveness. So when someone asks me to give or to be there or to show up or to march or to demonstrate, I’m there because I think that a group of thoughtful citizens are the only thing that’s ever changed the world. So I’ll be there, I’ll be standing in front. And if not’s politically correct, I don’t really care because it’s about ensuring that our world is a healthy and safe place for our children.
HCCLU: What is your opinion on the idea or the mindset that some people have about this generation? The mindset that we are too spoiled, too privileged, or that we act like we know everything when in reality we don’t?
TA: When generations, older generations, start talking about younger generations in a way that is like why can’t they be like we were, I think we’ve missed the mark. The reality of it is the young people of today are much more prepared than I was. I’ve gone into their classrooms and I’ve seen what an 11th grade classroom is doing and what a 2nd grade class is doing and I look back on my own education and I realize I didn’t come near the complexity and the problem-solving and the critical thinking that was going on. The whole aspect of being spoiled, we have to be careful with that because there is an opportunity within our nation to have certain expectations of privilege. I don’t want young people to think that the stuff, the quantity of stuff, is what matters in life. That’s not it. So sometimes I feel like we’re doing that to our young people at no fault of their own. I do worry that our young people are given a lot of mixed messages and that’s from the adults who have given them those mixed messages. I count on the young people who are going to step up and be the new attorneys, the ones who are going to be the new leaders, be the superintendents because I think young people are much more self-actualized than those of us who are in the twilights of our career. I think young people today are much more intelligent, connected, activated, and involved. I attribute a lot of that to the Internet because regardless of where you live or not, you know about the world. When I was a young person growing up, if I wanted to learn about a place I needed to go to that place. But now young people have everything at their fingertips. So I’m going to count on them to take us and lead us in the right direction.
Thumbnail photo courtesy of California Lutheran University.