Citrus College’s only new full time faculty was shocked when she realized she was the only hire for the fall 2021 semester.
“I didn’t find out I was the only faculty hired until convocation day. I didn’t find out until I went to convocation and then my face was the only faculty,” said Aleli Clark, who teaches anatomy.
Aleli Clark has been teaching anatomy online at Citrus since the beginning of the fall semester.
She was born in the Philippines and moved to Glendale at age 11.
Coming from an Asian household, Aleli Clark said her parents pushed her to become a doctor, lawyer or an engineer, but she said she has always preferred to help people in a different way and that teaching is a way to make a lasting impact.
Her husband Ian Clark said she enjoys receiving emails from former students and keeping in touch with them.
“Nothing makes her happier than getting a text from a former student thanking her for pushing them to do well, or for preparing them well for what they’re working on now, or even just letting her know that she was one of their favorite professors,” said Ian Clark.
Aleli Clark combined her love for helping and science together and found that teaching was the best path for her.
“For as long as I could remember, I always really liked science,” Aleli Clark said. “I always liked figuring out how things worked.”
Then she realized she was pretty good at it.
Her high school physiology teacher at Hoover High in Glendale, started a tutoring program where she became the head tutor.
This led to her owning her own tutoring business for 14 years starting her junior year at high school.
Because she had been tutoring in the science realm for a long time, “It felt natural for me to teach bio,” Aleli Clark said.
After high school, she went to Glendale Community College, got her undergrad at Cal Poly Pomona. She then went on to grad school at Mississippi State University where she got her master’s degree in general biology with an emphasis on genetics and cellular bio. She did this knowing that she’d be able to teach a bit of everything.
“I wanted the degree that would give me the most depth and breath,” said Aleli Clark.
She returned back to California after grad school with her husband and currently resides in San Dimas.
After owning her tutoring business, she started teaching as a professor at the University of La Verne and part time at Pasadena City College and Norco Community College until she was offered a full-time position at La Verne for 6 years.
Aleli Clark knew she wanted to eventually teach at a community college after seeing the influx of community college students transferring to University of La Verne, knowing many came from neighboring community colleges and wanting to be the initial driving factor to getting students into universities.
“My heart is in the classroom connecting with my students,” Aleli Clark said. “I also wanted to work at a place where I would have the greatest reach and with the variety of students that the community college services, I knew that was the right place for me to go to.”
She said she wanted to teach at a school like Citrus to be “able to see the journeys of people who return to school after being away for a while or the ones who didn’t have the opportunity to go to school” due to financial issues, family responsibilities, being a veteran or international students.
Servicing students that have limited opportunities and having a direct impact on those before they attend a university is why she chose to switch to a community college.
Living in San Dimas and wanting to stay local was a driving factor in Aleli Clark’s decision to take her position at Citrus.
“I wanted to serve the community in which I live,” Aleli Clark said.
She prides herself on being student-and faculty-oriented and believes that being one without the other can’t work. She believes she needs to familiarize herself with staff and faculty to better benefit her students if she can’t provide the necessary resources.
“You can’t be student-centered unless you are also faculty-and staff-centered,” Aleli Clark said. “Because the faculty members and the staff members you work with help you serve your students better and without them you’re a one person show.”
Aleli Clark prioritizes mental health and makes herself available to students if they need her. She prefers to be called by her first name in class to seem more approachable to her students.
Her husband said she doesn’t like titles and prefers to be called Aleli.
“She works really hard to make herself approachable so everyone feels comfortable asking questions and speaking their mind in her classes,” Ian Clark said.
Even in an online environment, Aleli Clark says the first thing she does is ask how her students are doing.
“She tells us that she is available to help whenever we get confused in some of her lessons,” said Keziah Daguio, a student of Clark’s. “Aleli is not your average and typical professor, she is more. She shows you her enthusiasm in her lectures and she even comforts you when you tell her you’re about to pull your hair out because of how crazy anatomy is. She is really an inspiring professor.”
Aleli Clark likes to reiterate to her students that “my job is to work for you. I’m here to serve you.”
She engages her students with relevant lessons about COVID-19 and mRNA vaccines, and creating IGTV videos.
“She makes sure we are retaining them and using analogies and imagery to let us fully understand her point/lessons,” Daguio said.
After three months, teaching only online and making sporadic visits on campus, Clark is excited to fully emerge herself in the classroom for the spring 2022 semester.
When she interacted with other faculty at a program review Zoom meeting for the natural and physical science division, where faculty go over budgeting, she knew she was at the right place.
“It was so nice how collaborative and respectful everyone was with one another,” Aleli Clark said.
She said the way everyone came and worked together online made her even more excited to return to campus and experience it in person.
“It’s nice to feel really integrated and to see how well everyone got along,” she said. “There was this environment of mutual respect and genuine camaraderie.”
She said after having experienced such companionship in an online setting, she can’t wait to feel it in person.
“You want to make sure where you’re working is a great place to be, and based on what I’ve seen, I think I’m there,” Aleli Clark said.
