A Close-Up Look At People Who Matter : Educator Helps Students Make a Difference

Patricia Siever recognized the face, one of thousands she had taught during the past 20 years.

“I remember faces very well,” said Siever.

But she did not immediately remember the name of former student Joanne Baltierrez when they met at a recent anniversary celebration for Mission College in Sylmar.

Siever, a community college history teacher, had made a big impact on Baltierrez, who as a single mother and returning college student at first struggled in her class.

“It was the first class in which I felt academically challenged,” said Baltierrez, who gave Siever a lapel pin from the San Fernando City Council on which she now serves. “I just have really fond memories of her believing in me.”

Now at Pierce College in Woodland Hills, Siever is a native of South- Central Los Angeles who still teaches history with a message--that students like Baltierrez can make a difference.

“You’re just as brilliant as the people who wrote these books,” Siever tells her students. “You just haven’t done it yet.”

“Many times we learn about the history of leaders,” Siever said recently during a lecture on the rise and fall of West African kingdoms. “We have to remember not to forget the people like you and I.”

She may teach with passion, but she encourages opposing points of view. “I continually carry three opposing thoughts in my head at all times,” Siever said.

In another class, Siever began a lecture on Booker T. Washington, giving the dates of his birth and death. “How did he die?” a student interjected before Siever could launch into Washington’s theory of economic self-sufficiency. “His heart stopped,” she snapped back with a smile and kept going.

“Let’s just talk for a minute,” she said soon afterward.

Then, she told the students to put down their pens and listen, rather than try to write down her words verbatim.

With the average age of community college students at 32, Siever must teach students getting their first chance at college along with those getting their last. She has to find a spark of inspiration in each one of them.

Finding that spark was what inspired her to keep teaching during those early days of Mission College when teachers had to carry their chalk with them from one storefront classroom to another. Once, a drunk stumbled into class from a next-door bar. “What’s this?” he said. “This is Mission College. Would you like to enroll?” Siever answered.

“She’s one of the more motivating, positive influences of the faculty,” said Jason Walker, president of the United African American Student Assn. at Pierce, which Siever advises. “She’s taught us not to challenge authority, but to at least question it.”

She has helped them overcome whatever hurdles they may encounter in setting up an event, he said. “I’m not pushy,” Siever said. “I just don’t take no for an answer. It’s an interesting response but it’s not an answer.”

Siever, active in the Los Angeles Community College Academic Senate, has been president of that body three times as well as vice president of the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges.

Last year, she received the Excellence Award for teaching from the University of Texas at Austin for workshops she has held on staff diversity and affirmative action. In 1989, she was named Outstanding Black Educator for California Community Colleges by the Black Assn. of California Community Colleges.

“We’re much closer to the student than in the four-year colleges,” said Siever. “It’s much more personal.”

And, her work with the college is much more than a job. “It’s more than a career,” she said. “It’s a way of life. And I’ll bet you many of my colleagues are the same way.”

Personal Best is a weekly profile of an ordinary person who does extraordinary things. Please address prospective candidates to Personal Best, Los Angeles Times, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth, 91311. Or fax them to (818) 772-3338.