Teaching & Learning Champions are faculty & staff who contribute to student learning (Guided Pathways Essential Practice #4). We share their stories to celebrate their dedication to instructional excellence & innovation in a series of spotlight articles. #ACCExcellence

Laura Tabor-HuertaMeet Laura Tabor-Huerta, Faculty & Instructional Support Specialist at the Riverside Campus

Tell us a little bit about what you do!

I provide advanced software and peripherals support, training, and assistance to faculty and staff.

Three words that best describe you?

Inquisitive, kind, dependable

How do you support faculty at ACC? Why is this work important?

I am the immediate point of contact for general daily classroom support at the Riverside campus. If faculty are in a classroom and have an emergency need for equipment restoration or substitution I am quickly responsive. I am available for consultations, recommendations, training, and direct support as needed with the usage of equipment on campus for such things as video conferencing.

If you had a fun or silly unofficial job title what would it be? Explain.

Prime Minister of Prank & Jank: I deserve this title because I like to sometimes play pranks on people. I have a small, plastic monkey toy that someone rascally gave me. It makes an obnoxious beep and a blinding blue light comes out of its eyes. If the office gets too boring, I like to have it peek around a corner at someone and squawk! I do other pranks too, but never cruel ones.

Where did you grow up? What was it like?

I was born in Cleveland, Ohio. All my grandparents were immigrants, 1 illegally here. I like that I can recall the two different cultures as a young child. I heard the Czech language daily until I was four years old. I recall the Italian culture of my other side and one of my earliest memories is of a large group of women speaking English and Italian and we are making noodles and laying them to dry on the backs of chairs in a kitchen. After that, my family moved a lot to Seattle, then Texas, Arlington, and San Antonio. I respect the different cultures I found myself suddenly in. Sometimes I experienced frustration with another move, but mom always taught me how to look on the bright side. I went to six different elementary schools but things slowed down and I went to just one junior high and high school.

How do you define success and how do you measure up to your own definition?

Success to me is to live up to the ethical values I was raised with and support myself. Keeping in mind that I feel very lucky to have a job that I enjoy. Keeping promises to my family is very important and I would feel very unsuccessful if I had not fulfilled all my promises through action and support to my brother, mother, and father until their deaths in the past nine years. I measure up quite well by my own definition. I feel no need to live by anyone else’s definition of success.

Connect with Laura via email: ltabor@austincc.edu

Recommend a Colleague:

Do you know someone who is a champion of teaching & learning? Send their name & why you’re nominating them to TLEDcomms@austincc.edu.