How Harper College’s First Black Female Full Professor Used Trauma-Informed Teaching to Slash English Failure Rates

A vibrant presence on social media, Dr. Shanté Holley offers her thoughts as a trauma-informed mental health coach, building community and encouraging people to explore the pursuit of joy. She has utilized these tools in her work as a professor of English at Harper College, a public community college in Illinois, at which she became the first African American woman in the college’s history to earn the rank of full professor.

Now in her 18th year at Harper, Holley has taught a variety of courses, the bulk of which are in developmental English and English composition. Developmental English is for students who are not quite at college level and need to build their skills so they can succeed in college.

“I also teach practical psychology and a practical psychological framework; this course is all about the way that we learn and the ways that our beliefs, mindsets and behaviors can disrupt the learning process,” Holley says. “I also teach diversity at the college. It is curriculum but it’s rooted in social inquiry when it looks at the ways that curriculum can liberate or oppress people.”

In the Diversity 101 class, students learn the difference between race and culture and the difference between bias, stereotype and prejudice. They also learn the social constructs and social consequences of things like race, power, class and ability.

“Community college students inspire me because of their grit and their tenacity,” Holley says. “This generation in particular, they’re battling fractured attention because so many of them grew up with tablets and scrolling. … They are building the muscle of resilience in real time because it is very easy to quit.”

At the top of a course syllabus, Holley notes that it is OK to have questions, make mistakes, not get something right the first time, need clarity and ask for help. She is well aware that things happening outside of school can impact her students, and she openly discusses navigating and overcoming obstacles.

“There’s a difference between teaching the discipline and teaching the students; I teach the students,” explains Holley. “It’s not just about getting through the material; it’s about equipping them with tools that are necessary to get them to persist in the college, to get them from start to finish because there are inevitably going to be struggles.”

Holley says Harper champions innovation. The year after Holley joined the college, a new president asked her to be part of the leadership team working to close achievement gaps for marginalized students. This included looking at barriers in students’ first semester of classes, specifically examining the classes with the lowest pass rate. She was put in charge of a class in the English department. After research and focus groups, Holley discovered students said the number one reason they didn’t persist was a lack of motivation. They had a fixed mindset.

“We gutted the curriculum and we embedded the mindset work right at the beginning,” says Holley. “We also looked at …how many students struggle in isolation, and we started to put learning communities together and encourage students to learn in groups, to share with one another and build camaraderie and resources. Within three semesters, that high failure rate was reduced.”

Over her years at Harper, Holley has worked on curriculum development. She notes that writing is a skill that one develops, and it is crucial that students know how to write, think and structure their ideas. Holley helped move developmental courses from grades to a simple pass-fail and created supplemental classes where students have an opportunity to practice those skills.

“I’m a big believer that students need opportunities to practice skills in a low stakes environment,” she says. “You need opportunities to make mistakes, get feedback, ask for help. I was awarded an innovation grant from the Illinois Community College Board for embedding a trauma informed curriculum into our English courses. … It embedded a licensed counselor into the class, so that when [issues of trauma] came up, these students had an immediate built-in resource where they could find support.”

She and a colleague started the Academy for Teaching Excellence. It started as a cohort of faculty who wanted to do research and learn best practices and is now the primary hub for faculty and adjuncts at Harper College to learn instructional technology, universal design and ways to engage students and remain informed on emerging technologies.

“That is one of those things that if I left the college today, it will be there long after I’ve left,” Holley says. “I’ve done things that have served both students and my faculty colleagues, and I’m very proud of that work.”

This article originally appeared in March 5, 2026 edition of The EDU Ledger.