Instructor Charles DeSassure is the head of the CS department at the Southeast campus (Arlington, TX) of Tarrant County College (TCC), between Dallas and Fort Worth, TX. He started at TCC's Northeast campus (Hurst, TX) just five years ago as an adjunct instructor, teaching Web development courses in the evening. He was also working full time as a systems analyst at CitiCapital Fleet Services (Carrolton, TX), and had just finished an MS from Webster University (St. Louis, MO).
Besides his regular job, DeSassure had often done training on the side, and people told him he would make a good teacher. "It was not originally planned," he says, but he's glad now that he gave it a try.
TCC is a state-funded community college with four campuses in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. In 2005-2006 nearly 35,700 students were enrolled. The school gives two-year degrees, and offers many courses that transfer to four-year colleges.
Small classes, hot subjects
"Many of our CS students do continue on to four-year institutions," DeSassure says proudly. But as a teacher he enjoys the smaller classes of a community college. In fact, "We get a lot of students from the large colleges who come here primarily for our smaller classes," he says.
An information security track at Tarrant is "now becoming very popular," and this past May the first info security grads got their degrees. Tarrant also offers career enrichment courses for established IT pros.
Putting class work to work
DeSassure himself is a good example of how students can put their classroom knowledge to work. He describes his career as "being in the right place at the right time," even back to his first high school typing class.
His typing skills led him to summer temp jobs where he first met up with computing. "I was always good at math but the typing skills got me in," he says. "I could type sixty words a minute, and they'd say, 'Great for a guy!'"
DeSassure, the youngest of nine kids, grew up in Eutawville, SC. He went to Claflin College, the oldest historically black college in South Carolina, and majored in business admin.
Math and business
He graduated in 1984 and got a job teaching math at a middle school, picking up computer courses as he could. He received an associates degree in IT from Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical College (Orangeburg, SC), where he studied Cobol and RPG.
From 1988 to 1990 DeSassure was coordinator and instructor of computer programs at Mansfield Business College (Columbia, SC). Then he segued into the corporate world. He saw in the newspaper that Systems & Computer Technologies, Inc (SCT), the international outsourcing company, had signed a contract with Orangeburg County. "I was in the right place at the right time," he says. "There weren't too many people in that area with the skill sets they needed."
SCT took him on as a microcomputer specialist, responsible for supporting the county employees and developing in-house PC-based apps. He also did PC support and software training.
In 1993 SCT positions became available in Dallas County, TX and he relocated there.
Black computer expert in the South
DeSassure notes that he had to travel a lot to set up microcomputers, and he was almost always the only African American on the job. "I used to call my mother and say, 'Ma, I'm the only one again,'" he remembers.
"For me, coming from a close-knit family and growing up in the church, I just brushed it off. It didn't bother me at the time," DeSassure says, "but when I got back to my apartment at night I would start thinking about it."
He notes with pleasure that his students today don't seem to have those types of issues. "I see the students getting along very well in mixed situations," he says.
Managing tech support and MIS
In 1995 DeSassure took a job as a field tech analyst in the Arlington, TX regional office of St. Paul Fire and Marine. He was also responsible for managing tech services for an office in Oklahoma City, OK. He traveled a lot, helping with Microsoft upgrades.
In 1997 he got married, and now has a two-year-old daughter, Sabrina Emily Mae. He also took a new job, as MIS manager for Marcus Cable (Fort Worth, TX). But the company wanted him to move to Missouri, and he liked the Dallas area. He found a job locally as a systems analyst at CitiCapital Fleet Services, providing nationwide software training and tech support for the company's fleet database management system and e-com website.
Tenure at Tarrant?
In 2001 he started as an adjunct instructor at Tarrant, teaching computer science and IT on the northeast campus. That fall the school asked him to come on board full time at the southeast campus.
"It was a risk to leave my excellent corporate position, because the first year everyone is just a temp. But everything worked out and the second year I was permanent."
Now that DeSassure has reached the five-year mark he can apply for promotion in rank, and for tenure. He plans to complete an MS in network security from Capitol College (Laurel, MD) and has taken IT courses at Dallas University's graduate school of management.
Tarrant County's chancellor recently recommended DeSassure to serve on the national information, communication and technology advisory committee of Educational Testing Services (ETS, Princeton, NJ). He appreciates the honor.
He likes being a role model for African American students. "The Arlington campus has a very diverse student body," he says. "My being here helps students deal with diversity."
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