Laura Manning has taught at Highline since the spring of 2000, and that length of service hardly does proper credit to the sheer impact she has had both in and beyond our campus. The end of this spring quarter marks the start of her retirement and following journey to Oklahoma, but students and faculty have found it difficult to let her go without showing exactly how much she means to our community.

The Thunderword sat down with Manning and reminisced about past challenges, lessons learned, and the core aspects of teaching that kept her coming back year after year, giving her all to students and faculty alike. 

Hearing the history of Manning’s career paints an elaborate picture as synonymous with public service as the woman herself. “My grandmother had been a teacher and I would hang out in her classroom and help her grade,” said Manning. 

Becoming enthralled with the process of teaching itself, she embarked on her teaching career at Highline and continued to discipline herself with the purpose of enriching the students’ experience in the classroom as well as on campus.

“I taught six week-long sessions on how to teach. We would have book groups, active learning, and things that we think help students learn better but I feel like I’ve spent my entire career learning from other professors,” Manning said.

Though her professional journey has been rife with practiced lessons and endless study on the subject, Manning remains open to the reality that there may be a little magic in the process of learning that extends beyond sheer memorization.

“I don’t know why it works when it works and I don’t know why it doesn’t when it doesn’t,” she said. “I do feel like if you can create a community and if you can invest in a classroom, you can set up the conditions where learning can happen and it takes off after that. As long as the students can invest in each other, the magic happens.”

Those words become tangible in the example Manning has set on campus for the past 24 years, as the outpouring of love and appreciation coming from the students and faculty at Highline have been unceasing since the announcement of her retirement. 

Highline’s instructor and coordinator of communication studies, Lisa Voso, was quick to point out Manning’s trailblazing nature on campus. “Laura helped plan our college’s first linked [English 101/Communication 101] course exclusively for ELL Jumpstart students… [as well as] campaigning for students who missed financial aid deadlines but were still wanting to pursue college,” said Voso.

Voso added that Manning’s work with grant applications, serving on tenure committees, Equity Task Force work, writing hundreds of letters of recommendations for students, and, maybe most characteristic of all, her “jubilant nature” that enriches everyone who has the honor to learn from her.

When asked what she felt about the biggest challenges students can face, Manning brought up the recent quarantine’s effect on education – chiefly its effect on students’ mental and emotional health. While students have mostly reverted to in-person classes, she feels we are not done honing our interpersonal skills, and in effect, our ability to learn from one another.

“I think offering face-to-face classes when faculty and students are comfortable and able to do so is huge,” said Manning. She goes on to express the benefits of students finding space in between classes when possible, whether it is studying, or just finding your comfort spot on campus where you can rest and thrive with others.

“I’m noticing a significant difference in the engagement of students who build in an hour or two in between classes. You might go to the library, your study group, or even talk to your instructors. You may even just breathe and be a student,” she said.

Manning answered one final question that perfectly encapsulates her role in the lives of our students. When asked what every student should keep in mind when walking onto Highline’s campus, she had this to say:

“Every student should think: ‘I belong here. This place is meant for me. I have things that I want in my life and the purpose of this place is to help me get them. So I need to ask for help until I get it.’”

The community as a whole is sending Laura Manning the most love and support possible as she moves on to a much-deserved retirement in her hometown in Oklahoma. The change she has instilled in this institution and the generations of students moving through it cannot be overstated, and those awaiting her in the midwest are especially fortunate to bear witness to what an inspired and driven educator can accomplish.

Thank you Laura!

*Cam Lyons has been an editor for The Thunderword since 2023. Their short story blog, “Loser Pulp“, is released once a month.*