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On the first day of class, Dr. Patricia Yeaman 76 would hand out her syllabus often eight pages long and then ask a question most students had never been asked before.
淚檝e just given you my expectations of you, she would say. 淣ow tell me: what do you expect of me as a teacher?
There was usually silence. Then curiosity. Then, eventually, trust.
For Yeaman, who spent four decades teaching sociology, that moment captured what education was meant to be: a shared responsibility, grounded in respect, conversation, and the belief that learning happens not only from books, but from listening carefully.
Born and raised in Fall River, Massachusetts, Yeaman arrived at Emmanuel in 1972 knowing she needed to leave home not because it was far, but because it wasn檛. Emmanuel was only about 50 miles away, yet it felt 渨orlds away.
At the time, Emmanuel was still an all-women college, and the world beyond its gates was in upheaval. The civil rights movement had reshaped American life; the Vietnam War was raging; social norms were being questioned in real time. For Yeaman, a sociology major, the classroom and the world outside it were in constant conversation. 淓verything we were learning was happening all around us, she said.
A Mentor Who Changed Everything
One professor in particular shaped the way she would see that world forever: Sister Marie Augusta Neal, SNDdeN. Demanding and uncompromising, Sister Marie Augusta assigned entire books sometimes five at a time and expected students to arrive prepared. But it was the question she posed on the first day of class that stayed with Yeaman.
Why, Sister Marie Augusta asked, do two-thirds of the world go to sleep hungry while one-third hoards the wealth?
淭hat question, Yeaman said, 渙pened every door. Under Sister Marie Augusta mentorship, Yeaman learned to analyze inequality globally, nationally, and locally and to 渇ollow the money, examining who writes laws and whose interests they serve. It was a way of thinking that would guide her for the rest of her life.
With encouragement from her Emmanuel professors, Yeaman went on to earn her Ph.D. in Sociology from Fordham University, entering graduate school through a Catholic academic network she hadn檛 even known existed.
A Teaching Life at Albertus Magnus
From there, she began what would become a 40-year career at Albertus Magnus College in New Haven, Connecticut a campus that felt immediately familiar. 淎lbertus felt like Emmanuel the moment I walked on campus, she said. 淪mall, mission-driven, deeply human.
At Albertus, Yeaman became known not only for teaching sociology, but also for how she taught it. Her classrooms were intentionally conversational. Students sat in a horseshoe, not rows. Readings were examined together, often line by line, and theory was continually applied to lived experience.
She also brought contemporary culture directly into the classroom. Music particularly hip-hop became a teaching tool for examining norms, language, power, and inequality. Yeaman listened closely to what her students were listening to, learned the lyrics herself, and invited them to analyze what those words revealed about race, gender, masculinity, and social values. The conversations were often challenging and, at times, uncomfortable especially when examining misogyny, language, and who is permitted to use it but they were always deliberate. For Yeaman, the goal was never provocation for its own sake, but critical awareness. 淐ulture shapes how we see the world, she said. 淚f you want students to understand society, you have to start where they are.
淚 wasn檛 trying to make sociologists, she said. 淚 was trying to make people who could think critically about the systems shaping their lives.
That approach resonated. Students who had never spoken in class found their voices. Others stayed long after class ended, continuing conversations that began with course material but quickly widened into discussions about identity, power, and responsibility. Yeaman learned every student name even in lecture halls of more than 100 taking attendance not as a formality, but as an act of recognition. 淩espect starts there, she said. 淵ou can檛 ask someone to show up if you don檛 first see them.
Adult Learners and the Power of Education
Her teaching extended beyond traditional undergraduates. For years, Yeaman also taught adult and continuing education students an experience she described as humbling. 淭hese were mostly women, she recalled, 渕any of them women of color, many of them older than me, who had already put their children through college and were finally coming back for themselves. Their motivations were different. They were not exploring possibilities; they were claiming them. Some were seeking a path out of unstable work. Others were returning to education after years of being told it wasn檛 meant for them.
淲hen I walked into those classrooms, Yeaman said, 淚 wasn檛 the expert in the room. I was a learner. Teaching adult students required a different posture one grounded less in authority than in mutual respect. Discussions were richer, more urgent, shaped by lived realities of work, care giving, racism, and economic pressure. Yeaman adapted her teaching accordingly, creating space for those experiences to be named and valued. 淭hey weren檛 there for theory alone, she said. 淭hey were there because education could change their lives.
Across all settings small seminars, large lecture halls, evening classes Yeaman held to one guiding principle: she would never ask students to do anything she had not done herself. That meant sharing her own story when relevant growing up without a father after he died when she was six; working relentlessly rather than relying on natural academic ease; navigating depression and anxiety; surviving domestic violence. She did so carefully, never to center herself, but to signal to students that struggle was not a disqualifier it was part of being human. The effect was profound. Students sought her out for academic guidance and for support. Some asked for help finding counseling. Others asked how to support friends in crisis. Many simply needed to be heard. 淓veryone has a story, Yeaman said. 淎nd most people are carrying more than you can see.
That philosophy was reinforced by another formative relationship: her decades-long friendship with Professor Ron Waite, her colleague and office mate at Albertus. Waite 攁 legendary figure on campus modeled authenticity, humor, and fierce care for students. He taught Yeaman to be fully herself in the classroom, to learn students names, to make eye contact, and to treat teaching as a deeply human act. When Waite died in 2020 the same year Yeaman retired it marked the end of an era. The pandemic had already pushed classrooms online, and Yeaman knew it was time.
淚 had given everything I had, she says. 淎nd I was grateful.