More Than a Teacher: Dr. Sean Thomas Leaves a Lasting Legacy at College of the Redwoods

Published on May 5 2025

When Sean Thomas first arrived at College of the Redwoods in August of 2002, he was an associate faculty member with a passion for teaching and a quiet hope that a full-time position might someday open up. Eleven years later, that hope became reality.

“I was hired as associate faculty in 2002, and then was hired full time in 2013,” he recalls. “So I worked as associate faculty for 11 years. My very first class was English 360, which was basic literacy. I think my first paycheck was, like, for 258 bucks or something.”

In the years since, Thomas has become a fixture in the English Department—his “home department,” as he calls it—although he occasionally ventured into public speaking and cinema. “I guess I kind of freelanced out,” he says with a smile, “but not a whole bunch. Just a little bit.”

His path to CR began much earlier, winding through undergraduate studies at Humboldt State (now Cal Poly Humboldt) and eventually a Ph.D. in literature from UC Santa Cruz. It was at UCSC where the seed of his teaching philosophy began to take root.

“When I went into the PhD program, I had these professors that just changed my world,” Thomas says. “It changed me completely. It changed me intellectually and psychologically. It was just such a dramatic evolution… it was the key element that made me into the person that I am today.”

With that transformation came a mission: to become, in his words, “as fully developed professionally as I could in the teaching of writing and literature.” That sense of purpose has guided his work at College of the Redwoods for over two decades, especially in the way he supports students who don’t always fit the traditional mold.

“Just last year I was diagnosed with ADHD,” Thomas reveals. “All along the way of my professional development I was also compensating for having a really unique brain and when it came time for scholarly work, I didn’t know this about myself, and I really struggled to work within normative frameworks.” That struggle, however, became a strength.

“I had this intuitive way to adapt, and to do adaptive things in the classroom, so that neurodiverse learners or people with differences could find success in my classes as much as possible,” he explains. “I kind of could figure out how to support a bunch of different people with pretty significant neurological differences.” His reward? Watching students who had faced years of discouragement begin to believe in themselves again. “I guess I’ve really enjoyed that part of my job, where somebody’s in a class, and they’ve had a lot of negative feedback or negative experiences before and I’m just like, maybe look at it this way… and then they have some breakthrough, you know.”

Thomas’s reflections are rich with a sense of growth and gratitude—gratitude for the students he’s mentored, for the faculty who’ve influenced him, and for the life he’s built in Humboldt, where he’s now lived longer than anywhere else. A native of Antioch, Thomas names several mentors who shaped his journey, including Pete Blakemore and George Potamianos. He also speaks with deep admiration about colleagues past and present. “Is it cheesy to mention my wife, Wendy Riggs?” he pauses thoughtfully. “I’ve never seen a better educator than her. She’s the best professor I’ve ever met. She’s phenomenal. She’s completely dedicated to what she does.”

Outside the classroom, Thomas finds joy in the simple pleasures: fishing, the color purple, jerk pork from A Taste of Bim in Eureka, and time in nature. “It’s the only time where I really don’t feel self-conscious—when I’m outside in nature, being on the water, especially,” he says.

As he steps into retirement, Thomas is clear about what comes next.

“People have been asking me what I’m going to do in retirement and I finally figured it out. My goal is to become the best fisherman I can possibly be and that’s where I’m at. And, focus on living life as well as we can live it.”

And what parting advice would he offer to those just beginning their teaching journey?

 “The advice I’d give people is: keep the students in the center. Learn something unique about each of your students. I’d focus on the humanity of everyone in the classroom and—laugh more. Don’t be afraid to be spontaneous or improvisational.”

Looking back, he reflects on his younger self with compassion.

“I probably would tell my younger self to be kinder to myself. Have more faith in my unique genius. I think my experience in life has been that I’ve been really hard on myself for most of my life, you know?”

And as for his legacy?

"It’s a bit surreal. . . I see the classroom as a space for collaborative discovery, self-creation, and shared evolution, and retiring feels like part of me is about to disappear. I treasure how much working with students shapes me as a professor, and as a person, over and over again, each semester. That promise of renewal in this work—that’s what I will miss most."