From High School Dropout to College Professor

Zakery Muñoz originally showed up at CNM’s Montoya campus back in 2014 with no appointment, no plan, and no idea where he was headed. He just wanted a college education.

This was a big step because Zak had dropped out of high school, earned his GED, and subsequently dropped out of UNM twice. He only warmed to the idea of reconsidering college after constant nudging from a friend.

He chose the Montoya campus because it was close to his apartment. On day one, he literally walked into a building and asked, “How do I go back to school?”

That was all it took. A CNM advisor met with Zak on the spot, learned about his passion for writing, and helped him enroll in CNM’s English program. That first semester is when he met Sandra Rourke, an instructor in the English department.

“Sandra is the professor I owe everything to,” Zak said. “I remember asking her, ‘How do I become you? How can I read literature with students and teach them about it?’ I didn’t know what an English degree was, but I knew I loved literature, writing, and teaching.”

Sandra clearly remembers her first class with Zak as well. He was shy to start, but she said something visibly clicked as the term went on.

“He teamed up with a group of classmates and they became so tight. I’d always see them reading each other’s work in the halls before class,” she says. “He was a strong writer from the start and led his peers in his grasp of everything from grammar and structure to diction and syntax.”

By 2015 Zak had graduated from CNM with honors, earning his Associate of Arts before returning to UNM for a third attempt. This time, thanks to the base he’d set at CNM, Zak earned a bachelor’s in English and History, and then a Master’s in English with a concentration in Rhetoric and Composition.

He didn’t stop there and was accepted as a doctoral candidate in Composition and Cultural Rhetoric at Syracuse University. After five years at Syracuse he entered the job market and was just hired as a tenure-track professor of English at Lehigh University where he teaches a diversity of classes in writing at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. Among those courses is Analytical Writing, which he originally studied under his mentor, Sandra.

When we recently spoke to Zak he said his passion for writing, a thirst for education, and key mentors like Sandra got him a long way on his journey. CNM, he says, gave him the chance to realize his full potential and was critical to his success.

“If you don’t know what’s going on, that means community college is for you. And if you know exactly what’s going on, community college is also for you. I’m proof,” he said.