Teaching Resilience

LCCC’s Carole Boughton helps students find the will to succeed 

Sooner or later, something goes wrong. 

For Carole Boughton, that reality belongs in the classroom as much as any lesson from a textbook. Students in her courses learn business concepts, but they also practice how to handle setbacks, navigate conflict and communicate professionally when things do not unfold the way they hoped. 

“A lot of students come from hard backgrounds,” Carole said. “You’re going to hit roadblocks. Not if, but when. So, what skills do you need, and what mindset can I help you shape now that’s going to help you when you get there?” 

At the center of Carole’s work as LCCC’s Business & Accounting Pathway coordinator and instructor is the idea that college should prepare students for real life, not just the version of it that goes according to plan. Classroom assignments become chances to work through tension, solve problems and figure out how to move forward when communication breaks down or expectations are not being met. 

That is especially true with group work, which Carole treats less as an academic exercise than a preview of what students will face long after graduation. 

“We don’t have group projects in the working world,” Carole said. “We just call that work. That’s just our day-to-day tasks.” 
Much of that perspective is rooted in her own experience. 

First-generation and dyslexic, Carole knows the feeling of encountering obstacles, and feeling uncertain in their midst. Rather than treating those realities as separate from learning, she sees them as part of the process students have to move through if they are going to build confidence in themselves. 

“The message is, there are resources to get through this,” Carole said. “You have to choose that. You have to choose to ask for help. You have to choose to have a growth mindset.” 

A career in higher education took shape early for Carole. While working as a student ambassador, Carole once gave a campus tour to a prospective student and later saw that same student at orientation. That moment resonated with Carole powerfully.  

“Here was a student who had a dream,” Carole said. “They interacted with the right person, and now that person’s dream is coming true, and she’s in college.” 

Roles in student services, outreach, workforce development and administration followed over the years. Even after rising to a vice president position, though, distance from students started to feel like distance from the part of higher education that mattered most to Carole. Returning to a role centered on teaching and student development brought those pieces back together. 

Inside the Business & Accounting Pathway, that philosophy reaches beyond coursework. Clubs, networking opportunities and events such as Vegas Night are not extras in Carole’s mind. They are part of helping students build community, gain confidence and start seeing themselves in the professional world they are preparing to enter. For quieter students, especially, those experiences can create a way in. 

No single version of success drives that work. Some students are motivated by service, others by financial stability, independence or the chance to create a better life than the one they started with. What matters to Carole is not imposing one answer, but helping students identify what success means to them and develop the resilience to pursue it. 

“What you take away from college is learning experiences, processes,” Carole said. “Sometimes what not to do, because, again, you’re in a pretty safe environment to make mistakes. Make them here, learn, grow, fix and then be ready when you get out.” 

By the time students leave her classroom, Carole hopes they carry more than business knowledge with them. A stronger sense of how to respond when life gets difficult, how to work with other people and how to keep moving when plans fall apart matters just as much. 

“I want students to be better than when they came in,” Carole said. “I want them to be successful long term. But I want every student to find what their success is and to achieve it.”