Academics
Aug 27, 2026
Originally published by the Council for Professional Recognition
Marsanell helped put together a performance for parents while she was teaching four-year-olds at ABC Daycare in Texas. “We wanted all the children to shine, and we spent a lot of time having them practice dances and songs,” Marsanell recalls. The highlight of the event was when the entire class got up and performed to Whitney Houston’s Billboard hit, “The Greatest Love of All.” In the opening lyrics Houston sings, “I believe the children are our future / Teach them well and let them lead the way.” They’re words that have inspired Marsanell throughout her career teaching every age group from preschool to college. As director of the education preparation program at Wiley University in Marshall, Texas, she’s committed to helping students fulfill their hopes and dreams.
She knows the importance of the role teachers play in helping students succeed because she attributes her own success to two professors at Texas Southern University who demanded that she do her best. “One day, I was walking in the hall, and they confronted me for missing classes and failing to be serious about my studies,” Marsanell recalls. “Those professors sternly told me they expected more from me, and at first, I was taken aback because no one had spoken to me that way before. But the professors made me reflect and realize that they cared enough about me to hold me accountable for not fulfilling my potential.”
Marsanell went on to graduate college and earn two graduate degrees in education, a field she had learned to love from her mother. “My mom was a committed preschool teacher who would do anything to help the families and children she served,” Marsanell says. “For example, she once had two children live in our home for three weeks when their mother was in the hospital and the children didn’t have any place to stay. She also taught a child who the public school district refused to serve since his ADHD made him too disruptive,” Marsanell says. Seeing how her mom would just keep going to meet the community’s needs inspired Marsanell as she went on to become an elementary school teacher and then an educational diagnostician.
“I did home visits to assess children with developmental delays and determine where they were falling behind,” Marsanell explains. It wasn’t easy for her to give parents the diagnosis that their child had an actual delay, but she found satisfaction in helping the children take small steps to advance. “When you help a child who doesn’t speak use words and complete a short sentence, it makes a big difference for a family,” Marsanell says. “Knowing that you played a role in helping the child progress is also great, and that’s a feeling I try to convey to the students I’ve taught at Wiley University since 2024.”
Marsanell wants to inspire people to enter and stay in the early learning field because she knows how much we need more teachers. Last year she explored new ways to expand their ranks when she did a fellowship with the Black Caucus of the National Association for the Education of Young Children and Tougaloo College in Mississippi. “As part of the fellowship, we had to pick a topic based on the research and interactions we had in the previous year,” Marsanell says. “I picked professional development and looked at ways we could give people a flexible, streamlined path to becoming early childhood teachers.” The result was a new program that just launched in August.
With Marsanell’s input, Wiley University is offering the Leading Educators through Accelerated Pathways or LEAP program. It’s an online program designed for working adults who have 24 credits but no degree. The LEAP program features five-week accelerated semesters in Wiley’s adult degree-completion format. The program allows the students to get their bachelor’s degree in conjunction with their CDA® in less than the standard four years, as Marsanell explains. “The CDA became part of the program because we wanted our students here at Wiley to walk across the stage at graduation with a marketable credential,” she says. “We are opening doors for passionate, driven individuals to become the highly qualified teachers our children deserve, faster than before. This is not just a program. It is our commitment to the future of education.”
As a key part of the program, Wiley is targeting career changers, Marsanell explains. And she knows from her own experience that it can be a bit daunting to change the kind of work you do. “I was nervous at first, when I went from working with young children to teaching older students,” Marsanell admits. “I expected the college students to be much more critical. But I came to realize that the key to helping students succeed, whatever their age, is building relationships. If students know you care for them, they’ll perform better. So, my door is always open for students to come in and chat.”
In the course of her discussions with students, Marsanell has also shared the challenges that she had while in college. “I’ve found that talking about my life experiences makes an impact on adults. They realize that I’m not just talking the talk. I’ve walked the walk. The students come to see that I succeeded despite an unpromising start, and they can, too.”
Wiley University shares Marsanell’s sense of commitment to students, as she explains. “We have an online early warning system that flags students who don’t appear to be performing as well as they should, and all the students have a success coach. The coach contacts the students every week by Zoom to see how they’re doing and find out what’s going on if they’re not turning in all their assignments. The university wants to maintain a strong relationship with students, so it can catch them before they falter in the program.”
As part of preserving these bonds, Wiley will also offer its online LEAP students the opportunity to do a residency or preparation work on campus “We don’t want LEAP to be a program where we never meet the students. At Wiley, we look on all students as part of our family,” Marsanell says, “so I try to go the extra mile to help the students I serve.”
If Marsanell hears from a success coach that a student is struggling, she’ll reach out to the student. “I’ll send the student a text to find out how I can support them,” she says. “I’ll suggest we meet weekly if they’re having trouble understanding the content of a course. If they just need a quiet place to work, I’ll suggest they come and study in my office.” And most of the students are grateful for the support. But if students don’t accept the help at first, Marsanell won’t give up on trying to get the students to fulfill their potential.
“Last year, I had a student named Perry who didn’t respond to my texts and didn’t come to the meetings I’d scheduled with her,” Marsanell recalls. “I had to track her down all year until she finally told me she had some trust issues. It turned out that there had been a lot of turnover among Perry’s professors, and she didn’t expect me to be there for her either. But I persisted in trying to build a relationship with Perry, and she apologized in the end for giving me a hard time. Perry did the work she needed to graduate from college, and she has been offered four positions teaching children,” Marsanell says.
“I like to think that the relationship I managed to build with Perry played a role in her success,” Marsanell adds. “I’m convinced that it’s important to make a personal investment in students like those two professors did in me back at Texas Southern University. I want to carry on their torch,” Marsanell says. And her sense of commitment is not only helping students build careers in education. Marsanell is boosting the ranks of teachers who can build the future for children.
