Julia Hren, Trinity’s assistant Forensics director and English teacher, who moved from West Virginia to join the staff, compares life in Florida to living in a jungle.
“About once per day I look outside and I see a palm tree and I’m like, Oh my god, I live here.” Hren said. “It’s very weird, seeing the lizard things that run around. It’s like Jurassic Park.”
Hren joins the Trinity staff from Marshall University, where she received a master’s degree in communications before going on to teach and coach their speech and debate team. Her passion for teaching stems from how important teachers were to her as a child, which caused her to want to be a positive influence for a future generation of students.
“Teachers really put me on the path to understanding myself and understanding the way the world works,” Hren said. “I wanted to help people understand and discover themselves, and I think teaching would be a fun way to do that.”
Throughout her career of coaching speech and debate, she has helped students grow in confidence and come out of their shells.
“I had a student in one of my speech classes that started out so timid and shy,” Hren said. “At the end he was like ‘Can I get a copy of my speech to send to my mom, it’s one of the proudest things I ever did.’ I want to help people like that.”
Along with speech and debate, Hren has a strong love of English and literature, which she teaches to Trinity’s ninth graders.
“I really enjoy that English encourages you to dig deeper and think about things you might not love, somewhat like how Speech and Debate does,” Hren said. “…I like the aspect of just thinking about everything and going, why does that matter?”
Outside of her love of English and Speech and Debate, Hren enjoys hobbies such as crocheting.
“I started crocheting because I love trying out new crafts, and I felt it would be relaxing and create a finished product that would be fun to look at,” Hren said. “I really like that with crocheting you can choose how big of a project to undertake and how much repetition of stitches there will be.”
When she’s not working or crocheting, she also spends time outside her career thinking about Speech and Debate and watching the news. Her dedication and passion is what makes her excited to help Trinity students grow in their own mindsets.
“I’m really about helping people find themselves, helping people understand that it’s okay to question everything, and we should,” Hren said.
