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My name is Emma Lucas Darby. I am the middle of five children, three boys and two girls. I was very protected by my brothers. I had a loving mother and father, and my mother was a homemaker and my father worked outside of the home. We always had someone around the house who just took care of us. My family lived in a neighborhood that was a very close knit neighborhood. Everyone on our block was considered to be our extended family, so anything we did, the neighbors would know about it. They would look out for us and we dare do anything that we shouldn’t have been doing because our parents would definitely find out. The love that was shown for all of us really made a difference. We had individuals who went to the same church, so we also had a religious connection with our Youth Fellowship Group and every Sunday afternoon that group met and we would have Bible study, would do some other things that we wanted to do. So that played a big part in my life. Being around these individuals who encouraged us to make something out of ourselves, help us to develop values that really made a difference as we grew up and we’re looking at things we could do with our lives. Most of the friends, families and my family always saying you’re going to go to college no matter what you’re going to graduate from high school and you’re going to go to college and they gave us the support that would make that happen. When I graduated as valedictorian of my high school, I went to college and I went to Tougaloo College in Mississippi, which is a historically black college. My major was political science. The foundation I received at Tougaloo is an important foundation for me because our professsors encouraged us to do things during the summer, and one professor asks me to fill out an application for a Ford Foundation fellowship, which I did. In my sophomore year and I was selected granted that for Foundation fellowship to study at Emory University in Atlanta, part of the Fellowship had us meeting professors at Atlanta University, and we did independent studies with those professors. So when I went back to Tougaloo after that experience and we received academic credit for it, the registrar at Tougaloo called me in one day and I couldn’t imagine why did he want me to come in, but anyway, he had evaluated my transcript from my summer study and had given me transfer of credit, which was equivalent to a full semester of study, so he wanted me to know that even though it was my junior year, if I went to summer school like a graduate from college and I did that. So I’ve never been a senior in college. But I have a PhD and it was because of that I went to summer school and immediately I was accepted at Purdue University, so I studied and received my masters at Purdue and came to Pittsburgh to the School of Social Work at Pitt, and received the Masters of Social Work and later my PhD from the School of Social Work.
Tip my favorite thing about teaching is seeing students grow. I have been in that field long enough to know that there is something that an instructor can help a student with. If it’s something as small as improving your writing or becoming more of a critical thinker or understanding the importance that each subject can be for you now and how you can use it later. I really love the contact with my students and I’ve had students throughout the years who would stop by my office and I would tell them I’m going to charge your room and board. You’re here so much. I enjoy the interaction with my students and I enjoy to see them grow from the point where I meet them until the point where I see them later.