Carlos Adams, A Statistical Anomaly Among Campus Faculty

Carlos Adams is an adjunct instructor who teaches American Minority and Ethnic Studies as well as Sociology courses at Green River College. 

Adams’ career began with the college nine years ago.

Adams initially set out to teach special education classes for students K-12. However, this changed over the years to things such as English composition and English literacy, but none ever stuck.

Adams took what he was passionate about, ethnic studies, and made a career of it while still implementing his original plan of teaching.

He found that he could take all the things that he liked from various disciplines and bring them together in one. He drew from things such as disabilities studies, class studies, gender studies, sexuality studies, literary history, sociology, and anthropology. Adams has eight to nine different disciplines within his dissertation.

“Ethnic studies has not only been the center of my occupation and at the center of my research, but at the center of my life. Ethnic studies became so valuable to me because it started to help me come to terms with who I was as a Chicano,” Adams said. He began working with an ethnic curriculum in 1994. 

Adams has overcome many adversities in life and achieved his greatest accomplishment by becoming a teacher. He studied at Whatcom Community college where he was awarded the Laidlaw award for the most outstanding graduate in his class.  

“In terms of professionally being a teacher has been my biggest accomplishment. I was a high school dropout, I dropped out my senior year of high school. I did not start college until I was 36, nobody believed in me nobody gave me a chance.”

Adams then later attended Western Washington University to continue his studies. He graduated with two degrees, masters and a doctorate in American and American Cultural Studies.

Adams’ achievements are a statistical anomaly in life, according to him. “When you look at it statistically it’s like .0001% of people who get a doctorate in their 50’s, let alone a Chicano high school dropout,” he said. 

Adams’s teachings have affected many students’ lives for the better. Although he is thanked for his work, his admiration for his students is so much greater. “I learn more from my students, more than they could ever learn from me. My students inspire me more than I could ever hope to inspire them. My students not only help me to become a better teacher but a better person. I am so thankful for that opportunity.”

“If you want to take a class that’s going to bring in different truths, if you want to take a class that taught in an unconventional way, and if you want to take a class that’s going to lead you to understand what it takes to be a better person, then you should take my class,” Adams said.