For Carolyn Colvin, literacy has never been only about reading words on a page. It is about access, opportunity, voice, and full participation in the world.

As Colvin retires from the University of Iowa College of Education on June 30 as associate professor of English Education in the Department of Teaching and Learning, she looks back on a career shaped by exceptional students, deep community partnerships, and a belief that higher education should make a meaningful difference beyond campus.

Colvin’s commitment to literacy began during her own master’s program, when she read a book about the politics of reading that transformed the way she understood education.

“It shaped the way I think about reading and how political it can be in determining who moves ahead and who doesn’t,” Colvin says. “Reading, literacy, language is critical to functioning in our world, and that was life-changing for me.”

That understanding became foundational to her work at Iowa. For Colvin, literacy is not simply a classroom skill. It is a pathway to access, opportunity, leadership, and civic life.

It also became the foundation for her approach to public engagement.

“If we’re not advocating for change, if we’re not working with community partners, if we’re not partnering with them to address some of the social issues they are facing, I don’t think we’re doing our job,” Colvin says. 

Colvin says she became increasingly committed to work that moved beyond traditional academic circles.

“I became kind of cynical when I stood back and looked at our profession where we present to the choir, we write to the choir, we take stories from people, we benefit ourselves,” Colvin says, adding she was deeply committed to reaching out to communities beyond the ivory tower, dedicating her work to teaching, research but, especially, to service.

She made a commitment to work more deeply with communities and to bring faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates into that work.

“We’re well educated. We’re privileged people,” Colvin says. “And if we’re not sharing our talents with others, then I think we’re not doing what we should be doing.” 

Much of Colvin’s community-engaged work has centered on West Liberty, Iowa, where she has built relationships with educators, families, students, and adult learners for more than three decades.

Her connection to West Liberty began in 1993, when she persuaded her department chair to support a professional development workshop with teachers at the middle school.

Though the first year started out small, it created a foundation for future success. 

That start became a long-standing partnership.

“I’ve been there a long time, and I’ve worked with adults, and I’ve worked with their kids,” Colvin says. 

In 2002, Colvin helped start a mentoring program to recruit graduating seniors from West Liberty to attend the University of Iowa. At the time, she says, those students were not coming to Iowa in significant numbers. Many of the recruited students went on to receive scholarships as first-generation college students.

Years later, Colvin has seen many of those students thrive. She recalled one alumna who earned an MBA from the University of Iowa and now leads a financial group in Chicago, as well as another former student attending an MBA program at Northwestern University.

“You know, with education and real persistence, immigrants can become leaders in our society,” Colvin says. 

Colvin’s work with immigrant and refugee adults has also shaped how she understands language, literacy, and community. English, she says, creates opportunity for those who can read, write, and speak it well, while also creating barriers for those who have not had access to learning English.

“The importance of language,” Colvin says, “the way English dominates our world, it creates pathways for people who speak English well and read English well and write it. It can hold people back when they don’t have access to that language.” 

Through interviews with adults and their children, Colvin has sought to understand why families came to Iowa, what they left behind, and what brought them to communities such as West Liberty.

She says communities like West Liberty, Ottumwa, Muscatine, and Clinton have been strengthened by immigrant families.

“Like many Iowa communities,” Colvin says, “large numbers of immigrant families have come and moved in and are really sustaining the economy in a time when some rural communities are fading away. I think education is going to be what keeps them going and keeps them strong.” 

That belief in education as a sustaining force runs through Colvin’s teaching. She has long incorporated what was once commonly called service learning into her courses. Today, she describes the work more often as community-engaged research.

For Colvin, the distinction matters. Community-engaged research is rooted in partnership and shared learning. She says, “It doesn’t position the academic up here and the participants down here.”

She has seen doctoral students take up that approach in powerful ways. One student from Ghana wrote an award-winning paper connected to community-engaged work. Another doctoral student began a partnership with teachers at Horn Elementary School, teaching them about Arabic language and culture.

“It’s exciting to see students pursue community-engaged research as an approach that they’ll embrace,” Colvin says. 

Colvin’s career has also been guided by her deep commitment to public education. When she came to Iowa in 1991, she says, the state’s strong support for public education was one of the reasons she wanted to join the university.

“Public education, it saves so many people,” Colvin says. “It gives them a trajectory that they might not have otherwise. And the teachers I’ve worked with, literacy teachers, are a big part of success that they experience. That’s been really rewarding.” 

In addition to her teaching and scholarship, Colvin served the university in several leadership roles, including as faculty senate president in 2000-01. That role gave her the opportunity to work with then-University of Iowa President Mary Sue Coleman, whose leadership left a lasting impression.

“I had a chance to work with Mary Sue Coleman, a woman leader who demonstrated leadership qualities that I admire — a strong voice and yet demonstrated empathy,” Colvin says. “She cared about faculty voice, and that mattered.” 

The experience strengthened Colvin’s belief in faculty governance.

“When we faculty don’t have time to share our commitment to faculty voice on campus, to be on faculty council, to serve in different avenues, I think we’re in danger of losing our profession,” Colvin says. “We can’t be so singularly focused that we ignore those opportunities.” 

Although she was initially intimidated by the role, Colvin says it became one of the most valuable learning experiences of her career.

“I was scared to death because I didn’t feel like I knew enough,” Colvin says. “I went to every meeting and listened and learned so much.” 

Through faculty governance, Colvin built relationships across campus with colleagues in medicine, nursing, public health, business, and other areas. Those connections helped her better understand the university and reinforced her belief in shared leadership.

“I got to meet with medicine and nursing and public health and made friends across campus that I have to this day,” Colvin says. “And I just value strong faculty voice, and I always will.” 

As she retires, Colvin is not leaving behind the community work that has defined much of her career. She has a grant through the UI Office of the Vice President for Research focused on public participation, building on a citizenship project she helped begin in West Liberty in 2017.

The project started after the 2016 election, when Colvin and a West Liberty teacher, Dan Stevenson, shifted an English literacy effort to focus on citizenship. Together, they recruited community members to help adults prepare for the U.S. naturalization test.

“[The test] is really literacy,” Colvin says. “It’s all about being able to read and write and memorize.” 

But as the project continued, Colvin realized that preparing adults to pass the test was only one part of citizenship education.

At the end of the program, she interviewed several adults. One man she had known for years told her he was happy to become a citizen, but then asked a question that stayed with her: “What do we do now?”

“I realized we had spent so much time teaching them about who won the war of 1812,” Colvin says. “We hadn’t talked to them about what it means to be a citizen.” 

Her current work takes that idea further. Colvin and her collaborators are helping community members learn more about local government, school boards, city council meetings, taxes, public services, voter registration, and how to advocate for community needs.

“It’s sort of taking that citizenship notion one step beyond and trying to teach them about West Liberty, how taxes are used, why they should care,” Colvin says. 

Those conversations, Colvin says, show the power of education in real time. In one recent discussion, participants talked about why West Liberty needs two ambulances and how Medicare and Medicaid requirements affect local services.

“There was a wonderful discussion about why,” Colvin says. “Again, this is what education can do.” 

Looking back, Colvin says she is grateful for the University of Iowa and for the people, partnerships, and communities that shaped her career.

“The University of Iowa is a terrific institution,” Colvin says. “I just have so many terrific memories of being a member of the faculty here and working with people.” 

She says some of her greatest growth came from going beyond her own college and learning from faculty across campus.

“I think I’ve probably grown as much working with people from public health and from business, getting out of the college and meeting other faculty members,” Colvin says.

For Colvin, retirement is not an ending. It is a continuation of the work that has guided her career: advancing literacy, strengthening public education, building meaningful partnerships, and helping people understand the power of their own voices.

From future teachers in Iowa classrooms to adult learners in West Liberty, Colvin’s legacy is rooted in a simple but powerful belief: education is strongest when it is shared, lived, and connected to community.