Professor Anju Vriksha’s story at Foothill thus far often comes back to the idea of ‘coming full circle,’ and she may be the perfect example of the journey that Foothill College strives to help their students achieve. A Foothill alumni, she now has helped lead the triumphant return of the Foothill Speech and Debate team which has been dormant for 15 years (which she was a key student member of during its championship winning run), while simultaneously starting her first year as a full time professor.
Yet if you had told Vriksha about all these successes when she first arrived at Foothill, she would’ve had a hard time believing it. “Foothills changed my life in more ways than I could ever count… when I was a student, not in a million years did I think I would be teaching, let alone teaching at Foothill. To me, it’s an amazing blessing.”
Vriksha’s journey to Foothill started when she was 15, after moving to California from India after her mother moved to pursue Bioengineering at Foothill. The plan changed when her mom ended up being hired as a full time K-8 science teacher. In a flash, Vriksha enrolled at San Jose’s all girls Catholic school Notre Dame High School. The environment did help to soften the culture shock that comes with joining an American high school, yet that feeling was still present. This big move to America had come much earlier than expected, and therefore she hadn’t fully planned or thought about going to American college. When an outreach specialist from Foothill attended her high school and spoke on the possibility of community college, Vriksha saw a path forward.
On her first day on Foothill’s campus, she arrived at a bus stop on the loop. “[It was] very unglamorous, just an ordinary bus stop… but immediately I felt like I had arrived home. I thought, oh, that’s a weird idea. I’ve never been here. Why would I feel that way?”
Over the next years, it quickly became clear why Foothill had such a strangely and instantaneously welcoming feeling for her. She tried everything on campus, taking as many classes as possible and getting involved with everything from student government to planning heritage months. She took advantage of the great resources she felt offered from Foothill, “I absolutely loved the energy, the people, the opportunity. There was really so much agency given to students at Foothill and a great sense of belonging. I felt like I thrived.”
Despite nervousness and through encouragement from Professor and Debate Coach Lauren Velasco, Vriksha got involved with the Speech and Debate club here at Foothill, and was part of the team that won the Northern California Forensics Association Novice Parliamentary Debate Championship in 2005.
When it came time to transfer away from Foothill, Speech and Debate played a key role in that decision as she was offered a scholarship to compete for Santa Clara University. While at SCU, Vriksha continued her love of learning new things, taking as many different classes as possible and, as a byproduct, often switching majors. This was great for learning a large scope of concepts, yet her parents eventually requested that she choose to graduate in the major she was in at that moment.
That major was History, with an emphasis on Asian History. “Naturally, that led to zero jobs,” Vriksha says with a laugh. However, this lack of immediate employment allowed her to further expand her horizons and experiences, and got a job as a part time docent at the Museum of Art in San Jose. While this was a great gig and she met a great group of people and got to be involved in the community in San Jose, it was still a part time job.
Vriksha then got contacted by a former tutee’s parent who thought she’d be perfect for a job; being a friend to a little girl. This was a confusing request at first, but Vriksha soon learned she would be accompanying a girl with cerebral palsy who was about to begin Pre-K. This was a wonderful opportunity for Vriksha, as the girl and her family were amazing and she got to experience the joys of being a child beginning their education all over again. In addition, this introduced her to the idea of working with children, something she hadn’t thought about prior.
She then became a teacher’s assistant and enjoyed it to the point where she decided to enroll in Santa Clara’s masters program in education. They had just begun an almost ‘dual enrollment’ program where students would be both getting a master’s in teaching and also receiving official teacher credentials at the same time. It was an intense program, but worked really well for integrating teachers and having them be ready to teach immediately upon completion of the program.
Unlike a history degree, this program was perfectly set up for a job upon graduation, and Vriksha became a full time fifth grade science teacher. She absolutely loved this job. While working there, she was contacted by her former Speech and Debate coach at Foothill, Lauren Velasco, who is also a documentary filmmaker.
She was working on a film about Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences and learning styles, and interviewing Foothill Alumni as part of the documentary. Vriksha was a great subject for an interview, as she was adept in verbal communication and linguistics but was currently teaching in STEM, showing a fascinating combination of multiple intelligences and learning styles. During the interview process, Velasco floated the idea to Vriksha about possibly teaching at Foothill. While there was a hesitancy around teaching adults vs. her experience teaching children, she always trusted her Coach.
Later, Vriksha began as an adjunct professor in the communications department at Foothill, and continued as a part time faculty until last year where there was an opening for a full time position. As part of this position, they were looking for someone who could kick start the return of the Speech and Debate team. This was a perfect full circle moment for Vriksha, who could help kickstart the next era of a program that was a huge part of her joy in attending Foothill.
She applied for the position, and got it. While the time commitment and responsibility levels have increased, so has her joy in being back at Foothill again. She’s been able to help the students of the new Speech and Debate team travel to tournaments and rack up awards, as well as become the faculty advisor for the South Asian Club which she helped form back when she was a student. These full circle moments are a key representation of Vriksha’s journey at Foothill, always growing and helping to lead the next group of students to follow in her footsteps.
“For me, [Foothill] has been a place of yeses, where you show up and you declare this is what you would like to have happen. And it happens. Foothill makes it happen. I want every student who walks through Foothill to have that kind of experience. That kind of empowering sense of agency is priceless.”
