While Women’s History Month passed recently, Nicholls educators such as Karen Chauvin continue to contribute to the greater good of the community every day.
Chauvin, Director of the Dyslexia Center, won the Women of Achievement Award for the faculty and staff category at the Women of Achievement Awards Luncheon last month.  Chauvin was elated to receive such an honor and could not believe she was chosen.
“I was truly shocked,” Chauvin said. “I do not get stuff like this.”
As the Director of the Dyslexia Center, Chauvin’s job description requires her to aid the needs of those who have been diagnosed with the disease. However, she does more than her job entails.
Chauvin began working at Nicholls as a program coordinator for the Dyslexia center and later became the interim director in 2005, before receiving the official position.
Chauvin’s drive to help others learn to read began when she was a first grader. Having always been a great reader, she could not help but sympathize with one of her best friends who was struggling in that area. This was when she realized she wanted to make a difference.
While teaching was not her first choice of a career, certain circumstances lead to her calling as an educator. When Chauvin came to Nicholls in 1988, she enrolled as a nursing student. She then decided to change her major to medical technology. However, she eventually had a change of heart.
“The semester I was set to sign up for an internship was the semester my parents got divorced, so I couldn’t really afford to move to New Orleans where the internship was going to be,” Chauvin explained.
Since she could not take the internship, Chauvin now looked to find another route that would lead her closer to graduation. Thus, her teaching career began. Chauvin graduated from Nicholls with a degree in elementary education in 1988 and immediately began teaching in Terrebonne Parish.
While teaching in Terrebonne, she came across one of her first challenges as an educator: a 10-year-old second grader who struggled with reading. Chauvin tried everything she knew to assist this child, but nothing seemed to work.
In 1992, she got the opportunity to attend a dyslexia workshop, in which she learned certain techniques to teach children how to read, and this training worked. During this same year, Chauvin also received her master’s degree from Nicholls as a reading specialist.
To this day, Chauvin has been using the skills she learned at this dyslexia workshop to further her career as an educator.
Since she has been a teacher, she said she has taught some of her students both as elementary school students and college students. In some instances, she has even taught the children of some former pupils.
“I guess I’m going to be a “grand-teacher” someday,” Chauvin jokingly said with a smile.
Aside from teaching dyslexic children how to read, she also uses her techniques to help students prepare for exams such as the American College Testing and the Praxis exam.
Chauvin enjoys helping people and said she has a problem saying “no” to anyone she knows she can be of service to.
“Knowing I have something that can help [someone], I cannot just say no because they are not dyslexic,” Chauvin said.