Celebrating 100 years with MSU Texas: Dr. Stephanie Zamora-Robles

WICHITA FALLS, Texas (KAUZ) - News Channel 6 is proud to celebrate a century with Midwestern State University every Thursday night with a new series that will pay tribute to university’s past, celebrate the present and envision the future.

For Feb. 3, we’ll start with a distinguished alumni, Dr. Stephanie Zamora-Robles. From dropping out of school in ninth grade to earning her doctorate, she has dedicated herself to a lot of service and helping others achieve their dreams.

“I was a nontraditional student, had four kids,” Robles said. “I was a single parent and was like oh gosh, MSU is a university for young people. I was really, really hesitant and nervous, they all just made it feel really safe. The transition was easy and I absolutely fell in love with all of the coursework.”

Robles transferred to MSU Texas in 2009 and by 2010, she had her undergrad degree to be a teacher.

“I loved it so much that I went ahead and went straight into the Masters program to become a principal, and I finished that two years later,” Robles said. “Then I took about four years off and they started advertising they were offering this Doctoral program, it excited me and I was like I can do this, I can do this.”

Robles started the Doctoral program in 2016 and finished it by 2020.

“My experience the entire time I was here was just amazing,” Robles said. “Very community-centered, especially in the West College of Education. I think I developed some really strong relationships with my professors. They were just very accommodating, which led me to believe and choose MSU for the Masters program.”

“We want them to be able to come to MSU and learn to explore, to better themselves, to look within, to reflect over everything they’ve learned, then to also go out and take it into the community and apply what they learned,” Robles said.

Robles said MSU Texas has a lot to offer that you can’t get at larger universities, including small classrooms and the relationships students develop with their professors.

“I know that that’s one thing that if you ask any of our students, we build relationships with them, we respond to their emails and their text messages, and we want them to be successful,” Robles said. “You can walk down here Monday through Thursday when classes are in session, all of the professors have their doors open when they’re not teaching, they have their office hours posted, they’re meeting with students throughout the day.”

“That’s what we want, especially for those that are going to go out into the teaching profession,” Robles said. “We want them to build relationships with their students so if they feel comfortable in that, learning can take place. One of the beautiful things about having a degree from here is that immediately I was able to go out and use my degrees, go out and get some experience and work hard, do what I love and now to go full circle and be back here.”

Robles said they want to create a community where students feel like they can ask questions, be critical thinkers and be creative.

“We also want to be inclusive when it comes to diversity and equity, inclusion, we wanna make sure that everyone has a place here,” Robles said. “There’s really a community of lifelong learners here that believe we’re always learning and that we never arrive, we’re always gonna be exploring and discovering and becoming better. I think that’s what MSU has done. Anytime if they can get better and make things better for their students or for their community, that’s what the people here do.”

All MSU Texas centennial celebration stories can be found by clicking here.

Copyright 2022 KAUZ. All rights reserved.