English Professor Retires After 17 Years At Kendall Campus
For almost two decades, Sylvia Orozco-Vaca devoted herself to students at Kendall Campus.
She taught college prep and English courses, using analogies and puzzles to teach basic sentence and argument structure. At times, Orozco-Vaca mimicked standing like a flamingo to demonstrate the importance of maintaining a solid argument.
“She takes her time to explain every little detail,” said Sandy Del Sol, who arrived from Cuba last year and took Orozco-Vaca’s English Composition I course in the fall. “She is extremely transparent and always treats her class in the most dynamic and supporting way possible.”
On Feb. 2, the 50-year-old retired due to health concerns associated with thyroid nodules, a condition in which fluid-filled cysts form in the throat.
“I didn’t have a choice…I have six-year-old twins,” Orozco-Vaca said. “I need to live for them and I’m not going to put my voice and life at risk.”
Born To Teach
Orozco-Vaca was born in New York City in 1972, more than 13 years after her parents fled Fidel Castro’s political regime in Cuba.
As a kid, Orozco-Vaca pretended to be a student so her cousin, Mayra, could practice giving class lectures. When her cousin became a teacher, Orozco-Vaca tagged along to teacher work days and helped her grade papers.
Inspired by her cousin, Orozco-Vaca created a simulated classroom at her house, using stuffed animals as students. She assigned classwork and grading papers and hasn’t looked back since.
When she was 17, Orozco-Vaca started working as an after-school care teacher at Royal Green Elementary in Kendall. One year later, she transferred to Winston Park Elementary, where she worked for seven years.
In 1998, Orozco-Vaca earned a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Florida International University. That same year, she became a full-time teacher at Robert Russa Moton Elementary. She worked there for the next eight years.
“We weren’t just students in her class, we pretty much became her kids,” said Amber Brown, one of Orozco-Vaca’s students from her first 4th-grade class in 1998. “I felt she genuinely cared for her students and took time to take care of all of us.”
In hopes of becoming a reading specialist for Miami-Dade County Public Schools, Orozco-Vaca completed her master’s degree in reading and exceptional student education from the University of Miami in 2003.
But a year later, financial struggles and divorce forced her to look for another job. That’s when Orozco-Vaca became a part-time instructor at Miami Dade College.
As part of a partnership between FIU and MDC, Orozco-Vaca became an MDC instructor teaching remedial classes at FIU.
In 2006, Orozco-Vaca was offered a full-time position as a college prep professor at Kendall Campus. After a conversation with her mother, Orozco-Vaca left Robert Russa Moton Elementary and committed to working at MDC.
“She was an inspiring teacher for her students,” said Michael Vensel, a now-retired English professor who started teaching at Kendall Campus alongside Orozco-Vaca. “She taught them the love of reading and the love of education.”
The pair, whose offices were across from each other, became quick friends. They often grabbed lunch and attended Kendall’s Miami Vineyard Community Church on the weekends and even participated in national and state conferences that taught reading and classroom management techniques.
“If she chooses to be your friend, you are her friend forever,” Vensel said. “She is honest, caring and compassionate and if you ever need a shoulder to cry on she’s there for you.”
Orozco-Vaca began teaching English Composition in 2013 following the disbanding of MDC’s college prep program.
During her time as an English professor, Orozco-Vaca also served as an interim supervisor at FIU, where she oversaw and mentored aspiring English teachers, giving them classroom and curriculum management tips.
“Professor Orozco-Vaca went above and beyond,” said Jenny Parra-Fuerte, who was a student intern at FIU in 2016 and now teaches language arts at Thomas Jefferson Middle School. “Instead of just giving feedback via email she met with me and other interns after inviting us to her house.”
Spirit of Perseverance
Orozco-Vaca’s life has not been free of adversity.
In 2019, she developed cysts in her vocal cord nodules that jeopardized her voice for two months. To accommodate, she broke up her class into groups of five students and met with them for 20 minutes in the study rooms in the Learning Commons at Kendall Campus.
She also had a stroke in 2013 that left her struggling to keep her balance and robbed her of her mobile skills for two months.
During her pregnancy with her twins, Orozco-Vaca suffered from blood clots and high blood pressure.
In 2016, the twins—Olivia and Oliver—were born prematurely. During their birth, Orozco-Vaca’s organs shut down and her liver enzymes were 20 times higher than the normal amount.
But despite her health issues, Orozco-Vaca always returned to the classroom.
“I’m not a quitter, I don’t know what it’s like to stop and slow down,” Orozco-Vaca said. “My philosophy has always been to get up if you are on the floor, dust your knees off and keep going.”
Despite the struggles, persevering has always been in her spirit. Two years ago, Orozco-Vaca created Kiddz Sense—a business that sells sensory bins for children in the neurodivergent community.
This summer, she will be a speaker at the annual Family Café Conference in Orlando, sharing her experiences teaching children with disabilities.
During retirement, Orozco-Vaca looks forward to being more active on her blog, sharing stories about her personal life and motherhood.
“I hope she gets to create many memories with her children and husband and that she just gets to follow her dreams without the confines of having to go to work every day,” Vensel said.
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