Marissa Ramirez
Reporting 1 Student
From rookie teacher to being chair of her department in Foreign Language, Calisa Marlar has given her all to Butler Community College as a Spanish professor. Marlar started here at Butler in August of 2001, fresh out of Kansas State University. She was only here temporarily for a semester, filling in for a teacher who was on sabbatical. Eventually, she would find out this would be her new work place for the next 17 years.
Marlar started her education at Kansas State University in 1994. She was the first in her family to attend college, and she was originally a political science major for three years but found herself asking why she wasn’t into it as much and why she filled her schedule up with Spanish classes. She eventually changed her major to Spanish, and she received her undergraduate degree in 1999. In November, Marlar went into panic because she wondered what she could do with a Spanish degree, so in April she applied to graduate school at 23 years old. She was accepted and was excited to be part of the grad school program in the Fall of 1999. She was not planning on being a teacher, but wanted to see where her degree would take her. Marlar taught at Kansas State in a program called GTA, which gave her the opportunity to teach in a beginners Spanish class and fell in love when she was in a classroom.
“It was where I felt like I fitted in and where I can relate to students,” she said.
Aside from teaching, Marlar loves to travel. She has been to many places including Mexico, Spain, Guatemala and Belize. When she was 14 years old, she went on her first trip to Mexico, which sparked her interest in traveling. During college, she lived in the Yucatan where she lived and worked with the Mayan indigenous people in the jungle for three and a half months.
“I brought back the desire to see how people lived in different economic and social culture,” she said.
Aside from it all, teaching adds the cherry on top to Marlar’s everyday life.
“I love teaching Spanish,” she said, “The older I’ve got the more I love it. I love the light bulb moments and watching kids get something they struggled to understand. It’s just a satisfying feeling when someone feels good about themselves, I love being part of that.”
She likes to help students understand the importance of learning another language, in this case, it is Spanish.
“I want students to understand that a person who speaks Spanish can be more hirable and make more money at a future job,” Marlar said.
Marlar spoke of the importance of learning Spanish and how it adds value to the workplace.
“Besides the making money part, it teaches you not only to be more receptive but introspective about your own life and how thankful you should be,” Marlar said. “When living overseas, it made me really happy about what I get to come home to.”