After 37 years, Professor Janene Whitesell announced that she is retiring at the end of the spring semester. During those years of working here, she taught Communications 001, 006, 008, and 010. She then spent her weekends coaching for the SCC debate team, which is nationally ranked among fellow colleges.
Whitesell, 66, started teaching at Solano Community College back in 1988, after falling in love with Communications as a subject. However, teaching public speaking had never crossed her mind until she attended college at Cal State Northridge. “I sort of fell into it. I was an art major when I started college, and I took a Comm one class, a public speaking class, just because my friend was taking it and I wanted to have a class with her.”
She followed, “And I was really terrified and intrigued at the same time. I like the idea of performance, I’ve always been a performer one way or another. But, the public speaking part was a challenge.”
Later she would join the speech and debate team at her college, which sparked her love for debate and public speaking.
“It [speech and debate] was almost the tail wagging the dog. I liked the discipline as a whole, I find the information fascinating. What got me into it was a very specific sort of niche activity, and then I realized that I wanted others to learn to appreciate and maybe even enjoy public speaking.” Whitesell told.
After later pursuing her master’s at San Francisco State, she eventually decided to spread her love of Communications by becoming a professor. However, she wasn’t planning on Solano being her forever home.
Whitesell stated, “There was another place I thought I would go when I started teaching, and then the position did not open up, but a position opened up here. So I took it because the school had a good reputation at that point, and still does. So I just want students to know that they’re in a good place.”
And so, for the past 37 years Whitesell has taught here at Solano College and enjoyed her career. Throughout those 37 years, she left an impact on the lives of students who she taught; This includes fellow speech and debate team students Franchesca Franco and Juan Mares.
Franco, who has been a part of the team for two semesters, met Whitesell in Communications 001, who then recruited her to join. Since then, she’s grown quite fond of Whitesell throughout the year of working together.
“Mrs. Janene has become one of the most influential people in my life as of recently. She’s not only become personally close, but as a mentor and instructor, she’s been insanely helpful.” Franco stated.
She added, “Mrs. Janene is one of the sweetest people I know, genuinely very very kind! I always joked that if the FBI needed to get anything out of me, then they should send her in because I feel that I could tell her anything. But genuinely, she’s one of the kindest and genuinely caring people I’ve ever met.”
Mares has also been a part of the team for a year and shares similar feelings to Franco.
“It’s almost like she’s our mother, I don’t know about everybody else, but… disappointing Janene? Oh god, I’d rather die! But she’s honestly been helpful in not just helping us strive to be better competitors, but being understanding when we’re not in the best headspace, even when we’re practicing for upcoming tournaments.” Mares explained.
Mares added, “She’s a lot more nuanced than she lets on, I think there’s a lot of different layers to Janene that a lot of us don’t necessarily see. I always forget, but she was such a rocker girl when she was younger! The whole ride to and back from state championships, nothing but rock playlists. It was absolutely great.”
Whitesell has expressed similar feelings for her teammates, describing her pride, “We sit in the auditorium, you know, but they’ll lock eyes with me and be like ‘I can’t believe I just did this.’ That’s very satisfying for someone who doesn’t have any kids…I’m really proud of them, even though they aren’t my children.”
Since her announced retirement, she’s discussed doing potential travel or further acting, as she enjoys performing in the theater scene. However, she still wants to focus on her voice.
As her last public speaking tip, she wants people to continue expressing their voice: “The penultimate advice is to avoid AI. You’ve got to use your voice because it’s all we have.”
