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When Marisa Mendoza-Maurer moved from Hawai’i to Colorado to begin her PhD program, she didn’t come alone. She brought with her a husband, two young children and a decade's worth of classroom experience as a secondary English teacher. The leap across an ocean and into a rigorous doctoral program is just one of the many monumental ventures she is undertaking.

Mendoza-Maurer is now in her second year in the 91������ School of Education's Learning Sciences and Human Development program, a space that aligns with her passions for literacy, identity and compassion.

Her work seeks to bridge metacognition—thinking about one's thinking—with self-compassion, aiming to help adolescents construct more empowering narratives about themselves.

"So many students would tell me, 'I’m not a reader or writer,' or 'I’m stupid,'" she said. "I realized that the type of narrative that youth say about themselves, particularly as they negotiate their literacy identity, really matters."

Centering Compassion in the Classroom

That realization propelled her towards research and led Mendoza-Maurer to the Renee Crown Wellness Institute, where she facilitates a course for the compassion and dignity certificate that’s part of the , part of 91������ Online. There, she helps current educators learn to extend compassion not only to their students but also to themselves.

"It's really easy for educators to have negative self-talk, too," she said. "There’s this expectation to do it all and do it well. Consequently, a lot of us put guilt and judgment and self-blame on ourselves, saying that if we’re not able to grade all our papers on time, we’re failing. If we’re not attending to the students and the parents and doing our curriculum the way we planned, we’re not 'good teachers.'"

Things like meditative practices are part of the curriculum, reframing teaching as an emotional practice as much as an intellectual one.

"You can rewire your brain for compassion, it teaches you to be more mindful and aware of your thoughts," she said. "It’s about being mindful and aware enough to recognize the suffering, and then doing mindful practices to alleviate that suffering."

Mendoza-Maurer believes that at the end of the day, it’s about educators— and others—giving themselves grace. There’s a lot of pressure for both students and educators to be perfect, but she believes we are all learning. 

“It’s about being comfortable with the mess and knowing how to be happy and compassionate regardless.”

Creative, Expressive Education

This ethos drives her work at The Laboratory for Ritual Arts & Pedagogy, or The RAP Lab, a creative scholarly community led by Assistant Professor Kalonji Nzinga. There, Mendoza-Maurer used the transdisciplinary research hub to explore her academic voice through oral recitation, particularly by way of spoken word poetry. 

It was in that experimental space, she says, that she felt empowered in a way traditional learning environments hadn’t quite offered. She felt like she had found an avenue where she was able to have fun with theory and ideas and engage with them in a way that made sense to her.

While she acknowledges that there is certainly a place for the traditional academic journal, she also believes "there's an opportunity to make space for more creative forms of writing and publishing," she said. “I want to push forward different notions of what academic writing could look and sound like.”

From the RAP Lab, Mendoza-Maurer has found that there are others like her, critical scholars looking to be creative in their work. She recalls a member who plays the violin and facilitates community-based improv workshops to aid in music composition.

"People often say, 'It didn’t just make me think—it made me feel," she said of the lab’s community gatherings and open mic events.

She finds this particularly important, as many people will not read an academic journal, but they are more likely to listen to music or watch videos. After watching a performance, audience members have said “it's inspiring me to act on the things that I've learned,” she says, "I’m feeling it."

She believes that this is what good education should do: "It connects these ideas, and helps you want to do something to help the world."

The Power of Paddling and Persistence

Outside the classroom and research settings, Mendoza-Maurer finds renewal in another passion: outrigger canoe paddling. 

It’s a sport she's practiced while living in Hawai’i, and it's deeply connected to Hawaiian culture and community.

Mendoza-Maurer turned to canoeing during a painful chapter of her life. When she was not selected for a competitive paddling race, she organized her own crossing of the Moloka’i Channel, the waterway between the islands of O'ahu and Moloka'i that is known for its mentally and physically grueling conditions for paddlers. In a one-woman canoe she paddled across 46 miles of open ocean, supported by friends and family in an escort boat.

“I just needed to prove to myself that I could do it. And I did,” she said.

Her journey from classroom teaching to PhD seminars, from ocean waters to 91������'s foothills, has been far from linear, but her passions flow and interconnect with deep intentionality. Mendoza-Maurer doesn’t just study identity development—she lives it.

"Ultimately, I want students and teachers alike to know: you are enough," she said.