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Dr. Trela N. Anderson
Dr. Trela N. Anderson
is an educator, author, speaker, and academic coach with over twenty years of experience in the field of teaching, writing, researching, and copyediting. She earned a Ph.D. in English from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, an M.A. in English from the University of Georgia, and a B.A. in English from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Trela served as an Assistant/Associate Professor of English at Fayetteville State University in Fayetteville, North Carolina for thirteen years and as Chair of the department for three years. Also, she served as Director for a grant-sponsored program entitled Reading Across the Curriculum for five years.
She has conducted research in the fields of writing and literature and presented at a number of professional and academic conferences. Additionally, she has published articles related to her areas of research in academic, peer-reviewed journals as well as a memoir of her relationship with her maternal grandmother entitled The Cinderella Stories: Lessons I Learned from my Grandmother, A Spiritual Memoir.
In 2007-2010, Trela founded and coordinated an after-school tutoring program for students in under-served areas of Fayetteville, North Carolina, and led a bi-monthly group called Destinyfinders for college-aged women, which was geared towards encouraging them to strengthen their relationship with Christ and pursue their God-given destinies.
During the past fifteen years, Trela has witnessed God’s interweaving of her personal and professional life, a mission to impact students’ and clients’ lives both inside and outside the classroom. This mission fostered the creation of the Brace-Based Student and More Excellent Way, LLC.
My Story:
The name “More Excellent Way” surfaced in 2004 after a long day of teaching my high school English students. I wondered why I could not seem to reach my students, why they seemed disinterested. In my silence, what I believe to be the voice of God spoke to me and said, “because teaching is not about performance, but about love.” Then, I opened a Bible and read 1 Corinthians 12, the “love” chapter where the Apostle Paul describes love as the gift to be cherished above all other gifts, even the gifts of teaching and working of miracles. Love is the “More Excellent Way.”
Four years later, circa 2008, I was an English professor at Fayetteville State university in North Carolina and a parishioner at a church located down the street from the university. At the time, the church’s focus was community outreach. So, I collaborated with a couple of friends to start an after-school tutoring program for the students at our church and within the neighborhood. During these sessions, we not only tutored students in Math, English, and Science, but we taught them Bible lessons and fed them home-cooked meals. We catered to students’ educational, emotional, and physical needs. We served them through love.
In 2020, I founded More Excellent Way, LLC as a company geared towards the teaching and tutoring of writing, proofreading, and editing services. Two years later, I created The Grace-Based Student, a ministry founded upon the premise that educational success comes not through performance, but through grace --- an expression of God’s love, guidance, power, and peace.
Recent statistics reveal a drastic increase in suicide and suicide attempts by teens, particularly during the pandemic. Today’s students are under enormous pressure to perform well academically, be liked by their peers, excel at sports, please their parents, and look attractive. These pressures prove to be too much!
John 15:5 says, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me, you can do nothing.” I have learned really bad things start happening when the branches try to operate as the vine. Things start falling apart.
The aim of More Excellent Way, LLC and The Grace-Based Student is to serve students and clients in excellence and God’s love.
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