Karen Smith: educating with an edge.

• Author: Olsen, Jaclyn
• Position: People

THE EXPERIENCES of Michelle Pfeiffer's character in the movie Dangerous Minds had nothing on Karen Smith's first foray into teaching. The director of Columbia College of Missouri-Salt Lake City Campus jumped into education in tough Southern California, fell in love with teaching and forged her career with care and dedication in the most challenging circumstances.

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Smith recalls being nearly strangled by one of her students, a gang-banger now in prison for murder, and getting stuck in the middle of other perilous situations her former students claim leave Dangerous Minds in the dust.

Currently in the midst of writing an experience-based novel--titled Real Voices to Real Choices--about her 13 years in the California Public School System, Smith wants to use her experiences to teach kids in tough situations who they should listen to and how to make good choices.

Smith says if she were still living in the Golden State, she'd most likely still be teaching in the rough-and-tumble world of public education. But circumstances led her to Utah in 1992. Smith arrived with the intention of teaching high school English in the Utah system, only to find that she couldn't afford to live on the minimal salary. So she leveraged her experience speaking and teaching adults after school in California to land a job at the University of Utah, supervising secondary education teachers. She left the U. to become director of education for Utah Career College, and nabbed her current position at Columbia College in 2000.

In Smith's four years at the helm, enrollment at the Salt Lake Campus has tripled. She has helped to elevate the school's...