With the departure of Spanish teacher Allison Stroud last year, there was a new position open and Liha Villanueva decided to take it.

Villanueva is from Clinton, OK and graduated from the University of Central Oklahoma in 2016 with a Bachelor of Arts in Education, specializing in English.

Her family came from Guanajuato, Mexico where none of them graduated from college.

“I decided to become a teacher because as a first-generation college graduate I thought it was super important so I wanted to emphasize education to everyone,” Villanueva said.

Last year, Villanueva student taught under freshman Pre-AP English teacher Elizabeth Boomer.

At first, she did not want to teach Spanish. “I knew that it was super important to speak two languages so my original goal was to be an English teacher, but you can both use them as a variety and it increases job opportunities of being a teacher,” Villanueva said. “I just wanted to teach.”

Since she shadowed before under Boomer, Villanueva found it to be an easy adjustment coming to Harding.

“It was really helpful that I already knew the environment and the rules and such so it’s just adjusting now from student teacher to real teacher,” Villanueva said.

Villanueva likes HCP because of the diversity.

“I like the goal to get everyone no matter their social economic standards no matter their sexual orientation anything just everyone goes to college and I like that about it.

Outside of school, Villanueva enjoys watching Netflix and reading.

“I’m mostly just an introvert so I just like to hang out at home.”