Karen Vaughn '80 & '82 Mathematics & Mathematics M.S.
Then known as Karen Head, Karen E. Vaughn arrived at Cal Poly Pomona in 1975 as a freshman math major. She loved her dorm (Palmitas, 3rd West), the Rose Garden, the flexibility to take classes in music and engineering and meeting her future husband, fellow math major Jeff Vaughn, through the National Mathematics Honor Society (KME).
She started graduate studies as well as a part-time lectureship in the fall of 1979.
“I deeply valued the faith my professors had in my abilities to do an excellent job,” she said.
Fast forward 39 years: Vaughn retired from full-time teaching in 2018. As a lecturer emerita, she continues to teach one or two classes each fall.
“I am still eager to help students learn to see math in the world,” Vaughn says.
She treasured teaching advanced mathematics to aerospace engineering majors and having multiple generations of families attend her classes. While Vaughn knew she wanted to be a math professor back in the eighth grade, she also harbored a desire to be an astronaut. Her interest in flying continued until she earned a pilot’s license in her 50s. Not that making time for flight lessons was easy, what with her career, family and the cancer diagnosis while pregnant with her fifth child.
Vaughn understands that students struggle with demands on their time and pressure to excel while they work and borrow money to pay for college. The pandemic magnified the difficulties.
Just don’t perceive obstacles as deterrents to your goals, she advises. Rather, make them challenges to overcome. Bear in mind life might not follow the trajectory you think it will.
“Sometimes the actual path you take and where it takes you is different from anything you had imagined,” Vaughn says. “Your degree may take you into a new, unchartered yet-to-be defined career. Every journey is different, everyone makes a mark, and every mark is unique.”