Alumni Spotlight: Kristin Turner '08
There have been plenty of esteemed alumni to graduate from St. John’s. There have been high-ranking military members, professional athletes, the founder of Under Armour, and even a literal princess. Right now, let’s take a look at Kristin Turner ‘08, who not only graduated, but came back to teach Spanish, and then went on to study at Harvard Law School, where she became the president of their Black Law Student Association.
After her appearance as a member of the BSU’s Black History Month panel, I interviewed Ms. Turner to learn more about her life after St. John’s.
While she was in high school, she realized that it was up to her to take control of her own life. She had role models and heroes all around her who blazed their own trails, and taught her to do the same. Her mother reminded her to always keep an open mind and an open heart. Whenever she turned on the TV, she saw Oprah Winfrey, who evolved from a TV host with her own show, to a magazine star, to an African-American woman who owned her own TV network, at a time where many weren’t able to have that opportunity. In Oprah, she saw somebody who was willing to do whatever was necessary to forge her own path and achieve what she wanted in life.
In an effort to do the same, she flew across the country to attend undergraduate school at USC. After college, however, she came back to teach Spanish at SJC. She describes her time as a teacher as an “interesting experience” because she was teaching students where she had just gone to school years prior. She mentioned that she was having parent-teacher conferences with the same adults at whose houses she used to spend nights and weekends. It was a role reversal because she was the student, but then she became the master. Teaching at St. John’s, she gained experience as an intermediary, a go-between for students and parents who couldn’t quite understand each other’s points of view.
After her quick but valuable pit stop back at home, she left to conquer something huge: Harvard Law School.
At Harvard, Turner developed the curiosity that she would go on to employ throughout her life. In her own words, “all the nerds were together.” In order to thrive in the Ivy League, she realized that it would take extra effort. While a Harvard student, she became the president of the Harvard Black Law Students Association.
It took a few years for Kristin Turner to figure out exactly what she needed to do in her professional life. After a momentous career change, she found herself working on Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 Presidential campaign. Her responsibility was to get Warren’s name on as many ballots as she was able. Ms. Turner walked away with valuable information about herself. She learned that she had a passion for making lives better for others. She wanted to do for others what she once had to do for herself: help people gain the keys to their own lives. She characterizes it as “creating agency” for others.
In a world that nobody “asked for”, Turner “interrogated” her life and recognized that she needed to have compassion for people in all sorts of positions – from those who are down on their luck to those on the top of the mountain. The Lasallian principles she absorbed here at St. John’s helped her realize her call to purposeful service for others, regardless of the money involved. She wanted to be the change that matters in the world around her.
Ms. Turner said she wanted to leave advice for member sof the SJC community trying to find their way.
Trust your life and follow your dreams, because you are your best teammate and most important relationship.
Turner said that everybody should ask questions – both of themselves and about the world – and truly take time to step back and evaluate their lives. Are you truly happy? Why do you do what you do?
Turner does her best to push the envelope and make herself better. That’s why she left what she knew at St. John’s to go tackle Harvard. That’s why she took the role with Elizabeth Warren’s campaign. She’s protected her optimism, knowing that even though she might go through rough patches in her life, good times are still ahead. Turner acknowledges that success is always in the mind. If you think things will go positively, they generally will. In short, don’t worry, believe in yourself, and everything will be alright.
