We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Elizabeth Naranjo Hayes a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Elizabeth Naranjo, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

The story behind the mission:

My parents are both immigrants from Mexico, and I was their firstborn child in the US. I am from San Diego, CA. I earned my degrees back-to-back through my MA from San Diego State University, though I had three children very young when I was married to a Marine (whose parents were immigrants from the Dominican Republic).

I taught college in San Diego until he left the Marine Corps, at which time I gave finals to my students and joined the Army to be an Active-Duty Army Officer. I served until my messy divorce, then I returned to education as the Director of a small, accredited K-12 private school that received some state funding.

During the recession, my campus closed, and my job was eliminated. My second husband then decided to join the Army, and we left to his hometown of Fort Benning/Columbus, Georgia with all the kids. There I worked at Columbus State University as a full-time lecturer and the all-purpose Latino issues go-to person 🙂 I also taught at Georgia Military College, Columbus Campus, where my husband and all three children attended for their lower division courses (they all later transferred to Columbus State to earn their bachelor’s degrees). I taught at their online campus, and I did public speaking for military and Latino audiences about going to college and about how the high school dual enrollment program worked in Geogia (since my children did dual enrollment and I was a professor for those classes). I taught at Fort Benning’s largest college represented on post: Central Texas College – Fort Benning campus, where I tailored my teaching to adult military students and their dependents. In addition, I was the sole interpreter at the Federal Court, Middle District of Georgia, serving all the cases that needed interpreting for about eight years. The vast majority were heartbreaking cases of deportation. I had my own interpreting company where I did legal and medical interpretation, serving mainly worker’s compensation medical cases and local attorneys.

In 2018, my husband earned his BS in Mathematics (he is a first gen student), and our youngest at 17 earned her AA degree & graduated as valedictorian of her high school, and she would be transferring as a junior to Columbus State where her two siblings were already juniors and seniors. At that point, as a lecturer I was tapped out in my field, so my Dean (one of the only other faculty of color) encouraged me to pursue my PhD, and he said he would personally write me a letter of recommendation if I did so. He said that as a first gen students and as a Latina, I was selling myself short settling as a lecturer. To push me, he also dropped me down to part time adjunct 🙁

Well, we did it! My husband and I were both accepted to The University of Alabama as graduate students for the fall 2018 semester! He earned his Masters in Secondary Math education in 2020, and is now a high school math teacher at Milan High School in Milan, MO. I earned my PhD, and I was honor graduate with an article written about me by the university in 2022. Our children are all LGBTQ+, and the picture that was posted alongside the article included a family portrait with our middle daughter who is transgender, and sadly there was so much hate online that I asked that the image and article be taken down for her safety, since she had moved to Tuscaloosa after her transition and works at the university Starbucks.

During my last semester in grad school, I was hired by Truman State University for my current tenure track position of Assistant Professor of Spanish and French Linguistics. I teach graduate and undergraduate courses in both languages, and I teach Spanish phonetics and phonology, translation and interpretation, Medical Spanish, sociolinguistics, and French linguistics, as well as lower division courses in both languages as needed.

I truly believe that if everyone learned one more language, they would be amazed at the new people they could talk to. I am in the business of creating bridges across cultures via shared language.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I have been teaching languages at the college level for over 20 years now. I have taught in San Diego, my hometown, in Columbus, GA, my husband’s hometown, in Tuscaloosa, AL while I was earning my PhD, and now in Kirksville, MO where I teach at Truman State University.

My passion and what I am most proud of is the community-based service learning that I am having my classes at Truman do. Kirksville is blessed with a large francophone African population of refugees, and Milan, MO which is a nearby town, is blessed with an overwhelmingly Spanish-speaking population due to the meat packing plants there. Since I teach both Spanish and French at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, I have been asking the community what their linguistic needs are and then having my students meet those needs as they implement what we are learning in class in real-world applications.

My French 3 course is currently doing AI-aided document translations from English to French, to meet the needs of the Greenwood Autism Center in Kirkville, as well as a joint study between the Truman Nursing department and the two local health departments. My Spanish classes have done AI-aided document translations from English to Spanish for the health department, for Truman’s Army ROTC department, as well as the places previously mentioned for French. Spanish students are also doing interpretation, and attending flu clinics and health fairs to interpret for Spanish speakers in the community.

My students learn how valuable of a skill it is to be able to communicate with people that you otherwise never would have talked to. They are making a tangible difference in their community, and it gives them “the warm and fuzzies” knowing they did a wonderful thing with their newly honed skills.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

My resilience story is about my time as a Soldier. I joined the Army after I had three kids, I was a college professor, and my (then) husband was leaving active duty as a Marine. I gave final exams and I shipped out to Army Basic Training (Basic), little did I know that I was going at the same time as the “split ops” high school juniors who attend Basic before senior year, then finish training after graduation. They were just about all 17 and going to the National Guard, whereas I was 30, married, and held a graduate degree.
I had been a runner for years, so I admit I was showing off, but the first week of Basic, I ran around the formation and led from the front to show I was faster than those “kids.” Well, I was going quite fast downhill and I hit a pothole that made my knee go the wrong way and my arches started hurting. It turned out I had torn the meniscus in my knee, and both of my arches had fallen. My shoe size increased by 1.5 so I needed all new shoes, and my knee almost got me medically thrown out of training. I sucked it up and kept going, though the injuries caused a domino effect that led to stress fractures from my feet to my hips. It hurt. But I was NOT going to get dropped!

I went on to Army Officer Candidate School (OCS) after graduating from Basic Training, though I was still hurting from the injuries. I made it through all of Army OCS to the last week, where all we had to do was one last 5 mile run, then the graduation dinner and ceremony. I had been on overnight duty immediately before that last run, so I didn’t have time to go grind up three 800mg Motrin to take before the run, like I typically did to make the pain tolerable, and it was cold that morning in GA. I made my time, but I was the last person in the company to finish. The Commander ran the last mile lap with me, and I was tearing up from the pain. He asked me why I was crying, and I said “Sir, because it is such a beautiful sunrise.” He made me finally go to sick call, and they x-rayed just one knee. It had 4 fractures, so I was dropped the week I would have been graduating. I was sent home on convalescent leave in a wheelchair, because they found 12 different fractures on me from my feet to my hips and my pubic ramus.

I was NOT going to surrender, so I petitioned to class back up for the next cycle. I had to pass a physical fitness test so I could class back up, so I did, though I was still on crutches. I redid the ENTIRE OCS training and finally graduated from the US Army School of Infantry. I was commissioned as an Army Officer.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

A time I decided to pivot was when I had been teaching as a full time lecturer at Columbus State University (CSU), and my husband and two oldest kids were all students there working on their bachelors degrees. Our youngest was dual enrolled in college classes rather than attending high school, so she graduated with her Associates Degree a week before she was valedictorian of her high school class, all by age 17. Our 18 and 20 year old kids were juniors and seniors at CSU, and my youngest would be a 17yr old junior transfer to CSU that fall. My husband earned his BS in Mathematics the same semester our youngest graduated with her AA and from high school.

I had been teaching college with my MA degree for years, but due to marriage, children, moving, military, etc, I had never had the opportunity to get my PhD. My Dean at CSU and I were one of the only people of color at the university at the time, and he called me in to tell me that I was the BEST professor he had, but that without a PhD, I was maxed out as a lecturer – and that it was a shame because I was settling. He said that if I pursued a PhD that he would personally write my letter of recommendation to any program. And he bumped me down to adjunct, I think, to push me into it.

That was the same semester that my youngest and husband were both graduating, so my husband and I decided to go ahead and both apply to graduate programs together! We were both accepted to The University of Alabama, him for his MA in Mathematics Ed, and me for my PhD in Romance Languages: Spanish and French Linguistics.

I quit my job, we left our 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom home in a nice cul de sac to the 3 kids and asked them to pay the mortgage, and we moved to Tuscaloosa, AL! People thought we were crazy to make such a move, but our kids were all college juni0rs and seniors at the time, so we figured it was our window of opportunity. It ended up being the best decision for us, as now he is so happy as a high school math teacher, and I love being a tenure-track professor with a PhD!

We are both first generation college students, so this was a huge accomplishment for us. We are also both disabled Army veterans, parents, and a bit older than the rest of the student body. Now we use this experience to let our students know that it’s okay to pivot in life, and that you should always keep learning and growing as a person.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://enhayes.sites.truman.edu/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.naranjo.hayes
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elizabeth.hayes08
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drnaranjohayes/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@dr.elizabethnaranjohayes/playlists