PJC’s Joan Mathis a Minnie Stevens Piper Professor

Published or Revised May 09, 2011

Longtime Paris Junior College English instructor and alumna Joan Mathis has been named a 2010-2011 Minnie Stevens Piper Professor. The Minnie Stevens Piper Foundation bestowed the honor for her teaching excellence; she is one of 10 outstanding professors selected from public and private two- and four-year colleges and universities in Texas. As part of the announcement, the Foundation Board of Directors stated that this is a "tremendously difficult task facing the selection committee each year in choosing ten from the many outstanding professors nominated from across the state of Texas. We stand in humility and gratitude in viewing the dedicated teaching talent in Texas higher education." Ms. Mathis was the oldest of five siblings born to a family of sharecroppers on the MacDonald farm a few miles east of Paris Golf and Country Club in Lamar County. She attended segregated schools, when not released to help harvest cotton. "I was valedictorian of six students at the North Powderly Colored School, since consolidated into the North Lamar schools," Mathis said. "My father Berlin worked with Sen. A.M. Aikin to desegregate Paris Junior College, and he told me it would be done when I was ready to go, and it was." PJC enrolled its first black student in 1954, and Mathis graduated from PJC in 1958, when the ceremony was held in the Ray Karrer Theatre with approximately 36 students. "I was the only student of color in my English class, and we were to give a presentation, and I was scared," Mathis remembers. "I went to my teacher, Miss Goolsby, and she told me, 'We will work on it until you are perfect,' and we did." Mathis graduated from Wiley College in Marshall, Texas, in 1961 and is planning to attend her 50th reunion next March. She returned to teach at her former school in Powderly, then taught four years at Paris High School. "In 1975 I took a job at PJC, where I've taught developmental English, English composition, and American literature," she said. "In 1985, I was asked to coordinate the writing center. Mathis has served as president of the PJC Faculty Association, on two Southern Association of Colleges and Schools committees, and several times as creative writing judge for the University Interscholastic League. She currently serves as Secretary on the PJC Alumni & Friends Association Board. She has also served on the board of the Habitat for Humanity, the Paris Education Foundation Board, volunteered with The Boys and Girls Club, been two-time president of Church Women United and serves on the Racial Diversity Task Force. She is on the Board of Directors of the Lamar County Chamber of Commerce. If there is an opportunity to touch the lives of young people in Lamar County, she tries to help out. Of her calling, Mathis said, "I believe that one of the greatest ways to affect people's lives is to educate the mind, because an educated mind opens the mind for freedom – freedom for thought, freedom to make wise decisions. I truly enjoy making a positive difference in students' lives." "She is at once both an inspiration to everyone who knows her and one of the most humble people I have ever met," said PJC President, Dr. Pam Anglin. "Joan cares about each and every one of her students and no matter how late the hour or how tired she is, she won't leave work until everyone has been helped. She is a truly inspirational person to this college president, who can only look on in awe at the lives she touches, the activities she is involved in, and the causes she champions. Joan has left a legacy on multiple generations of students in Northeast Texas." "Joan's exemplary talents are recognized campus-wide," said Vice President of Academics Dwight Chaney. "Working with Joan almost daily, I know she handles such accolades with a great humility. She takes most things in stride, and her work habits challenge her younger colleagues as well as the students under her guiding hands." "I first met her in 1981 when I was a student at Paris Junior College," said Student Activities Director Kenneth Webb, "and became active in the African-American Student Union. At the time she was one of my advisors and I learned what a wonderful, caring person she was and that she would help you with anything. At basketball games I continually see former students come up and hug her and tell her how much she meant to them and how much they learned from her, and she still knows all their names. That is amazing, for a teacher who has taught all the years she has to such a huge number of students — to still know their names is incredible." "Every year, without fail," Webb added, "she is nominated by students for both Homecoming Queen and Miss PJC, which shows how much students care about her. If she could be on the ballot, she would probably win." The Minnie Stevens Piper Foundation is located in San Antonio, Texas, and the awards program to reward superior teaching at the college level was begun in 1958. Other professors honored this year came from Rice University, Texas A&M University, Sam Houston State University, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, San Antonio College, The University of Texas at the Permian Basin, The University of Texas at Arlington, the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, and Lamar University – Beaumont. Though many great PJC instructors have been nominated over the years, Ms. Mathis is only the second from PJC to win the honor and the first since 1980. That year, Dr. Harley Davis, chairman of the Industries and Technologies Division, was selected and received his honor from PJC President Louis B. Williams. That year PJC was the only community college represented; this year PJC is one of two among the 10 institutions represented. As part of the award, Ms. Mathis received a certificate, a $5,000 honorarium and a gold pin commemorating the event, which Dr. Anglin will present at PJC's graduation ceremony on May 13.