homeworks trenton

HomeWorks Trenton Announces Applications for 2023-2024 School Year

As a child, the environment is everything. The sights, sounds, and attitudes surrounding you will day-by-day shape the person you become. HomeWorks Trenton, the city’s first after-school residential program, was founded to provide young women with a vibrant environment to grow and thrive. If your daughter is a rising 9th or 10th grader and is interested in being a part of this movement, read on to learn more about how you can get involved.

HomeWorks Trenton has officially begun accepting applications for the 2023-2024 school year. To apply, please apply the link here: Apply – HomeWorks Trenton . There will be two rounds of application processing; round one takes place from January 30th through April 2nd, with round two beginning on April 2nd and concluding on May 7th. To qualify, students must achieve a 2.5 GPA and attend a Trenton Public School. Following the submission of the initial application, students will undergo interviews with HomeWorks staff to determine placement. Acceptance decisions will be released by May 10th for round one and May 24th for round two. Admissions will occur on a rolling basis.

A complete timeline of the application process can be found on the graphic linked below:

HomeWorks Trenton first opened their doors in 2016 to serve marginalized young women and femme-presenting individuals in the Capital City. The first of its kind in the city, HomeWorks stands apart from other after-school programs as it offers residential opportunities for its students. Their goal is to supplement a public school education and help forge the next generation of leaders. Ultimately, HomeWorks’ vision is to develop chapters all around the country (and even the world!), allowing young girls to harness their full potential in a community setting.

Residential programs can have a profound impact on the development of student participants. Per HomeWorks, 87% of boarding school graduates reported feeling prepared to enter college versus 39% of public school students. However, boarding schools typically have barriers to access that prevent underserved communities from accessing these resources. HomeWorks has made it its mission to bring this experience to Trenton’s young women, ensuring that future femme leaders can access the resources they need to thrive.

If the HomeWorks program sounds like a good fit for you and your family, all 9th- and 10th-grade girls in the Trenton Public School system are encouraged to apply. If you have any questions before applying, please get in touch with the HomeWorks team at [email protected] or (609) 414-7907 for additional details. Do not let this fantastic opportunity pass you by; apply today!

The post HomeWorks Trenton Announces Applications for 2023-2024 School Year first appeared on TrentonDaily .

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Trenton public school scholars get a boarding school setting

Homeworks Free Community Based After School Residential Program for Girls Homeworks Scholars Chobe, Iliana and Noah color and hang out in their dorm. Homeworks is a free community based after school residential program for girls (known as scholars) from marginalized communities. February 20, 2024 (Phil McAuliffe | For NJ Advance /Phil McAuliffe)

Natalie Tung emigrated from Hong Kong to New Jersey when she was an eighth-grade student. When she arrived, she was enrolled at the exclusive and expensive Lawrenceville School in Lawrence.

Tung, who went on to graduate from Princeton University, said the move to America was pivotal, for academic reasons.

Although it was tough to leave her family and culture behind in Hong Kong, living with her teachers and classmates in New Jersey made her feel like she was “no longer learning for grades, but learning to make sense of her identity and the world.”

Moreover, “living in a dorm with 40 other young women” made her realize that “when women come together, good things happen.”

Tung, now 28, became a teacher, and while at Princeton she worked as a student teacher in the Trenton Public School District.

While teaching, she thought, “What if I could provide the same experience that was transformative for me as a high schooler to students here in Trenton?” What if this could be done without the high costs typically associated with boarding schools and without removing the students from their community?

Tung found a way by launching HomeWorks Trenton , along with what she says was a “supportive Trenton-area community.” Tung found founding through grants and crowdfunding. The project partners with Trenton Public Schools.

“We’re not here to replace their school experience, we’re here to build on that education,” Tung said.

She focused on Trenton students to help the district’s diverse student population. These Black and brown girls “face barriers as they navigate the intersection of racism and sexism. They experience a high rate of interpersonal violence; feel less safe at over-policed schools; may resort to ‘acting out’ when their counseling needs are disregarded; and receive disproportionate punitive punishment,” according to the HomeWorks site.

Getting started

The pilot launched in 2017 with five girls in a four-week summer program. Since then, HomeWorks has built a team of eight staffers, eight board members, and more than 20 volunteers who work with the 12-15 young women who have enrolled.

For those young women, the program is free and includes a community-based afterschool residential program. They are dropped off at the HomeWorks dorm — a building on the Rider University campus — on Sunday evenings and return home after school on Fridays. While at HomeWorks they are taken to and from their public schools every school day.

At HomeWorks, the girls participate in afternoon activities focused on academics and identity-driven leadership; they eat their meals altogether family-style and they sleep in a college-style dormitory with two full-time staff members.

The girls enrolled here are known as scholars, and Tung said the term “scholar” is very much intentional. “We’re building a program where (those enrolled) know they are being held to a high standard because we believe they are capable of achieving what they want. We know they will be successful in their academic pursuits and grow as leaders in the community.” Tung believes that referring to the girls as scholars cements this philosophy.

The intent is to provide scholars a “safe academic and residential space where to gain the tools to achieve their full potential, and collectively break down social injustices in their home communities and beyond through ground-up, people-driven systemic change.”

Their goal is for all of the scholars to graduate from high school, for at least 80% of them to graduate from high school with a 3.0 GPA, and for all of them to have at least one leadership skill and activity inside and outside of the classroom. All of the scholars are also expected to be accepted to a 2- or 4-year college.

Tung said scholars have it within them to succeed academically; we just need to give them the tools to unearth that success.

According to a statement on the HomeWorks website, “Statistics show that boarding schools can be a great equalizer and give women the confidence to do things they didn’t know was possible. For example, 87% of boarding school graduates reported being ready for college, compared to 39% of public schools.”

The curriculum

HomeWorks develops its after-school curriculum in-house, but there is input from the district and other community partners. A Trenton public school teacher is also on staff at HomeWorks, and that person acts as a liaison with the district. Learning partnerships with area businesses and institutes of higher education are in place, too.

The curriculum has a different focus each day of the week.

Mondays are dedicated to academics at HomeWorks. Tuesdays are for “identity-driven leadership,” which focuses on social justice, self love, body image and global girls curriculum. On Wednesdays, they focus on Wellness, which could include self-care and self-love and can include sports or pamper stations to manicures and pedicures.

The scholars go on field trips on Thursdays. Trips have included visits to college campuses, horseback riding excursions, travel to Broadway shows and informational sessions at area businesses, such as an architectural firm.

Staff notes

Dynell Kellyman, HomeWorks’s chief operating officer, began volunteering at HomeWorks while working on her dissertation in educational leadership from the University of Pennsylvania.

“I saw how HomeWorks was partnering with Trenton Public Schools and I wanted to learn about the partnership,” the Trenton native said.

“I’ve worked at nonprofits, but (HomeWorks) is my life’s work” Kellyman now says, “When we invest in scholars, we invest in communities.”

HomeWork’s house director is Michelle Gbelama-Okore, a youth development specialist and professional tennis coach. She is the founder and CEO of She Leads Sports LLC, an organization that empowers girls to become productive women through sport-based activities.

She recently started a nonprofit organization “WE LEAD SPORTS INC” that provides free or low-cost tennis mentoring and college readiness programs to under-resourced youths in New Jersey. She is also the creator of the academy “College Level Recruit,” a program that works to prepare high school athletes for college, improve their mental performance and help them secure college scholarships.

Born in Liberia, Gbelama-Okore moved to Trenton at age 13 and graduated from Trenton Central High School, so, she said, “I can definitely relate to the girls.”

The scholars

Noah, a 15-year-old first-year scholar, said she was initially skeptical when she learned about HomeWorks.

“I never heard of such a program,” she said, but added, “when I went through the interview, I knew it was for me.”

It’s “exciting to learn new skills, meet new people,” she said. “Meeting new kids helped me be more open” to all kinds of things, including religious beliefs.

Noah acknowledged she was a little nervous going to a new place, but she said she was most concerned about the schedule; time management was a challenge when she started at HomeWorks. “I wasn’t used to such a rigorous schedule,” she said.

She said she quickly “figured it out.” She said after school she rejuvenates a little, enjoys a snack and then gets down to business. She is wholly appreciative of the opportunity to be enrolled and noted how exciting it was to go on field trips to college campuses like Princeton and Drew.

Joy, 16, is a second-year scholar and a HomeWorks peer leader. She was recommended for that role of responsibility by Tung and house director Michelle Gbelama. In her capacity as a peer leader, Joy collects forms and generally helps in whatever way the house teams need.

She said it initially was a little difficult to communicate to fellow scholars that she had a leadership role, but “now they understand.”

Joy, like Noah, said “it was a bit hectic adapting to the scheduling, but she has mastered it. After high school, Joy she said she is considering several colleges. She named Yale, Boston University and Montclair State University as a few under consideration.

Growth on the horizon

HomeWorks will soon have a new nearly $3.6 million campus in Trenton and this pleases Tung in that the new space will allow them to add 25 more scholars, for a total of 40. The new permanent base of operations will be in the city’s Parkside neighborhood on Edgewood Avenue.

The scholars will be living in a “state-of-the-art residence, exactly the kind of place they need to focus on academic pursuits in a supportive, communal setting,” according to the architectural firm, said Joshua Zinder, founder and managing partner at JZA+D, which is handling the project.

A rendering of the new HomeWorks campus in Trenton. (Courtesy JZA+D Architects)

Though the building, which was originally a farmhouse, had been vacant for some years and suffered some damage from fire and squatters, Zinder said it had the right mix of potential and location – just 10 minutes from nearby public middle and high schools that the HomeWorks scholars attend. The property is adjacent to Frederick Law Olmsted-designed Cadwalader Park.

How the building looked before the HomeWorks Trenton project. (Courtesy JZA+D Architects)

When complete, HomeWorks’ new home will include dorm rooms for the scholars and apartments for a live-in house director, an assistant house director, and three additional live-in staff, plus a variety of work-study areas, a full kitchen, and an elevator for ADA compliance.

The master plan includes arrangements for on-site parking, bus pickup and drop-off, and space for the development of outdoor learning experiences that take advantage of the site’s location next to the Delaware Raritan Canal State Park Trail pedestrian walkway.

Zinder, who is doing the work for this project pro bono, said other professionals are donating their time to the effort, too.

Scholar input

For Tung, allowing the scholars to have a voice in the design was important. “Ultimately, our scholars will be living in the house. We need to maintain a budget and the safety of our scholars is of utmost importance, so, of course, there were many things they didn’t weigh in on, but we (heard their opinions) on things they could choose like the color of the tile, the posters on the walls. We wanted the kids to feel like they’re a part of the process. It all goes back to ... we’re all in this together.”

At the HomeWorks new campus, there will be ample study space, as shown in this rendering. (Courtesy JZA+D Architects)

For Tung, who hopes to take the HomeWorks model well beyond Trenton, this work is tremendously gratifying.

“All of the scholars are unique and have their own passions; this is ultimately what drives me. I believe in the power of women and I believe in the power of community. I believe when we come together we can affect change.”

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HomeWorks Trenton Announces Applications for 2023-2024 School Year

As a child, the environment is everything. The sights, sounds, and attitudes surrounding you will day-by-day shape the person you become. HomeWorks Trenton, the city’s first after-school residential program, was founded to provide young women with a vibrant environment to grow and thrive. If your daughter is a rising 9th or 10th grader and is interested in being a part of this movement, read on to learn more about how you can get involved.

HomeWorks Trenton has officially begun accepting applications for the 2023-2024 school year. To apply, please apply the link here: Apply – HomeWorks Trenton . There will be two rounds of application processing; round one takes place from January 30th through April 2nd, with round two beginning on April 2nd and concluding on May 7th. To qualify, students must achieve a 2.5 GPA and attend a Trenton Public School. Following the submission of the initial application, students will undergo interviews with HomeWorks staff to determine placement. Acceptance decisions will be released by May 10th for round one and May 24th for round two. Admissions will occur on a rolling basis.

A complete timeline of the application process can be found on the graphic linked below:

HomeWorks Trenton first opened their doors in 2016 to serve marginalized young women and femme-presenting individuals in the Capital City. The first of its kind in the city, HomeWorks stands apart from other after-school programs as it offers residential opportunities for its students. Their goal is to supplement a public school education and help forge the next generation of leaders. Ultimately, HomeWorks’ vision is to develop chapters all around the country (and even the world!), allowing young girls to harness their full potential in a community setting.

Residential programs can have a profound impact on the development of student participants. Per HomeWorks, 87% of boarding school graduates reported feeling prepared to enter college versus 39% of public school students. However, boarding schools typically have barriers to access that prevent underserved communities from accessing these resources. HomeWorks has made it its mission to bring this experience to Trenton’s young women, ensuring that future femme leaders can access the resources they need to thrive.

If the HomeWorks program sounds like a good fit for you and your family, all 9th- and 10th-grade girls in the Trenton Public School system are encouraged to apply. If you have any questions before applying, please get in touch with the HomeWorks team at [email protected] or (609) 414-7907 for additional details. Do not let this fantastic opportunity pass you by; apply today!

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A New Take on Boarding School

These Trenton students attend public school — and Princeton alumni are ensuring they get the support offered to private-school peers

Photo: Sameer A. Khan h’21

IT’S 3:45 P.M. IN EARLY OCTOBER , and teenage girls in baggy T-shirts, flowing braids, and COVID-19 face masks stream off the yellow school bus, their energy bubbling over even as they’re uncertain of where to direct it. But these girls aren’t shifting gears to go home, hang out with friends, or tackle the latest viral TikTok challenge, as many of their classmates in the Trenton public school district will do this evening. 

Instead, the young women are disembarking on the campus of the Lawrenceville School, a leafy private boarding school on a sprawling campus full of red-brick buildings down the road from Princeton, as participants in HomeWorks — a free, academically rigorous after-school program for young women of color from lower-income backgrounds in Trenton, started by Natalie Tung ’18. After dropping off their backpacks in their rooms in a gray stone dormitory reserved just for them, the girls will start the second half of their school day. For the next six hours, the “scholars,” as the program refers to its participants, will take part in a structured schedule of study time, dinner, presentations by guest speakers, and one-on-one tutoring — with a few hours for free time. 

The evening has an orderly rhythm, steadily moving from session to session, a direct contrast to the more leisurely movements of the Lawrenceville students, who move side-by-side with the HomeWorks scholars in the dining hall and across the campus but rarely interact with them. 

“You have your normal schoolwork and school day and you’re interacting socially with everybody at your school, then you come here to [HomeWorks’] programming and have a busy schedule,” says Darae, a sunny 17-year-old with a corona of light brown, Afro curls that dip over her eyes. She has been with HomeWorks since it started three years ago; now she’s a peer leader. “But [HomeWorks] also just feels like going home, you know? At least to me, it doesn’t feel like just a boarding program. I’m going home to girls who I care about and girls who care about me. I’m going home to adults who care about me and vice versa. I’m going home to support where I need it, you know, academically and socially and emotionally — really all around.”

EDUCATORS AND education-reform experts commonly say that much of what can hinder the progress of students in urban public schools actually happens outside of the classroom. In lower-income households and communities, a disruption can trigger cascading events that result in a loss of learning opportunities for students. For example, family financial issues can lead to homelessness — occasional or long-term — that in turn causes truancies that prevent students from getting subsidized meals in school, a lack of nutrition that hinders physical and neurological development. Limited access to affordable health care can mean many ailments go untreated. And violence and abuse within neighborhoods can further scar students’ social and emotional growth. 

Some educators have proposed creating urban public boarding schools that could cater to these nonacademic needs, but according to one study by Harvard economist Roland Fryer, educating a student at such a school can cost three times as much as the usual per-pupil cost for traditional daytime education. Successful public boarding schools do exist, such as the network of SEED schools — co-founded by Rajiv Vinnakota ’93 — in Washington, D.C., Maryland, Miami, and soon in Los Angeles. Those schools, which also are independently operated charter schools, have succeeded in raising the financial donations and pro bono supports that are essential to providing both education and housing to young adults from lower-income backgrounds.

But beyond costs, some critics raise concerns that urban public boarding schools remove the highest-achieving students from their neighborhood schools, draining communities of potential future leaders inside and outside of the classrooms. At the same time, critics say, the students in boarding programs are left to infer that the very communities in which they grew up are barriers to their individual success. 

Tung believes that HomeWorks, which she founded in 2017, could circumvent the problems of both price and brain drain. By letting the Trenton Public Schools handle the core part of the students’ education, HomeWorks saves money while focusing on providing individualized tutoring along with out-of-school academic and social supports, such as workshops on how to recognize the warning signs of abusive relationships and physical- and mental-wellness sessions. 

“We’re so excited about this model because not only is it replicating boarding schools without the bureaucracy, high fixed costs, and scalability issues of running an actual school, it’s also reversing the narrative that our kids need to leave their marginalized communities in order to be successful,” says Tung. “We know that Trenton is incredible and has so much to offer. There’s so much richness to this city. Why not stay here and have our girls work together to stay in their neighborhoods and build up their community?”

Today, HomeWorks employs a core staff of eight people, including Vilma Jimenez ’18, the development and program manager, and works with volunteers. (A board of trustees and an advisory group — both of which include Princeton alumni — help steer the organization.) The budget in fiscal year 2021 was about $273,000, up from about $80,000 three years earlier. 

“HomeWorks is a very worthy model to test and see whether or not we can make it work for a couple of reasons,” says Vinnakota, who is now president of the Institute for Citizens & Scholars, in Princeton. “Number one is there isn’t any one model that holds the answer to all situations or all communities or all students. Having the ability to try different models is really important to see what we can learn from it.

“The second [reason] is that the model that HomeWorks is trying is, frankly, just cheaper,” Vinnakota says. “Though you don’t want to have all situations be driven by cost, [the affordability] certainly helps you when you try to calculate on a policy level what’s the return on investment.”

TUNG STARTED ON THE PATH that would lead her to create HomeWorks when she was still an undergraduate at Princeton. Her academic experiences before she entered college had shown her how large a role a school’s learning environment can play in a student’s academic growth. For example, as a child growing up in Hong Kong, she found the school she attended to be impersonal, which in turn limited her success in the classroom.

“It was very numbers-driven in everything. We were even called by our numbers,” Tung says. “I was number 31. [The school] was all about testing. I think because of that, in terms of the culture of the school, I didn’t have a lot of confidence growing up. I was also just failing a lot of my classes and a lot of the tests, and I ended up repeating third grade.”

Her academic turnaround began at age 13, when her family moved to the United States and Tung enrolled at the Lawrenceville School. “Living in a dorm with 40 other women who were my age who were from all around the world, that environment was just unlike anything I’d ever experienced before,” she says. “It made me more empathetic and more confident, more vulnerable. And it also made me realize that when women come together and when we lift each other up and when we’re being nice to each other and cheering each other on, it changes everything.”

A class at Princeton on social entrepreneurship further awakened Tung to new possibilities. Even before she took the class, she was enticed by the idea of one day creating a new boarding school experience, one that was fully accessible to students from lower-income backgrounds. She says the course helped her realize that she didn’t need to wait until she reached middle age to pursue that goal. 

Of course, operating a boarding school while still a college student wasn’t a viable option, but Tung took her first steps toward her goal by becoming a student teacher in the Trenton school district through Princeton’s Program in Teacher Preparation. While she relished her interactions with students, she observed firsthand the ways in which the school district was unable to meet their needs fully. Widespread chronic absenteeism and low test scores on crucial math and English exams were common. 

“It’s not the kids’ fault. It’s not the parents’ fault. It’s not the teachers’ fault,” says Tung. “It’s the system’s fault that this is all happening. And it was really frustrating. It was really heartbreaking.”

The summer before she graduated from Princeton, Tung started HomeWorks as a small summer pilot program; after she graduated, it became an after-school program. She chose to have the program enroll only girls because she wanted them to learn how powerful women can become when they support one another.

“For women, specifically Black and brown women, there’s the intersection of being not only a person of color — and all of the challenges and systemic injustices that come with that — but also gender,” she says. “Understanding what it means to be a girl in this world and not feel completely safe, we wanted to build a program that teaches them to be confident, where they don’t feel they have to put each other down to be at the top.”

HomeWorks recruits its scholars by starting with nominations from eighth-grade teachers and counselors at Trenton middle schools. “We specifically look for kids who are ready and willing to be all in,” Tung says. After receiving a nomination, the students and their families go through an application process that includes several rounds of interviews, including a final peer-group interview with already-participating scholars. For the 2021–22 school year, HomeWorks received 30 applications and enrolled five new students, for a total of 11. 

The screening process aims to identify young women who are willing to make the commitment HomeWorks requires, becoming a part of its community while forgoing some of the time they could share with family and friends from school. The scholars acknowledge that tradeoff but say the experience in the boarding program makes it worthwhile.

Darae has four siblings; her two older brothers and older sister no longer live at home, so it’s her younger sister who misses her most when Darae is with HomeWorks during the week. “She believes that what I’m doing here is really great,” Darae says. “She tells me all the time how proud of me she is. Sometimes she acts like she doesn’t really care I’m away from home, but I know they do get lonely [when I’m gone] because I’m the star of the house.”

Fifteen-year-old Nkosazana is a sophomore in the HomeWorks program who aspires to study abroad, perhaps in Italy or South Korea, and become an anesthesiologist. Because she is an only child, the boarding program offered a new social opportunity. “I’m not very used to being around other girls that much, so at first, I wasn’t too pleased with the idea of staying overnight with other girls,” she says. “But once I got used to it, it was easier because I found girls that were just like me going through the same situation being at home by themselves. They might not have been only children, but they have older siblings who leave.”

The scholars must sometimes explain to their Trenton classmates why they can’t socialize after school. The other students “ask a lot of questions,” Darae says. “Typically, I tell them, you know, ‘I’m going to a boarding program. I like it.’ You know, that’s the most important part. I tell them a little bit about what we do.”

THE COVID PANDEMIC , with its sudden move to online classes, presented special challenges for HomeWorks. The program began bringing its scholars to its site during the day, where they could attend their Trenton classes online.

“Virtual schooling [at home] was really tough for our kids. It was hard,” says Tung. “Maybe they didn’t have a computer to use, or they didn’t have Wi-Fi …. Their parents were at work or the kids had distractions at home. We had meals here, and we provided a space where really all they had to do was just learn.”

The pandemic also limited opportunities for field trips and cultural activities, but the program made the most of what it had. When President Joe Biden declared Juneteenth a federal holiday this year, the students participated in celebrations and demonstrations in Trenton. Last spring, they took part in a competition co-sponsored by the Reinvention Lab at Teach For America and the NinetyNine Products sneaker brand. Challenged to create a sneaker design that embodied the future of learning, the HomeWorks team focused on the idea of inclusivity, creating the “Diaspora” running shoe in shades of brown, beige, yellow, and tan to represent “the diversity of girls,” with black shoelaces to symbolize “being tied together for life.” “With each step, I remember the power that our melanin holds, creating legacies in our own communities,” Darae said during the video conference that was part of the shoe’s final pitch. The process helped the young women build skills in conceptualization, collaboration, and marketing.

Even before COVID, managing the daunting challenges of urban education was “much trickier than we anticipated,” says Kris Schulte ’83, who chairs the HomeWorks board and works full time as a teacher at the Lawrenceville School. “Part of the challenge is that the kids are really all over the place in where they are academically.”

To address these challenges, HomeWorks has dedicated more time this year to one-on-one tutoring and invested in an adaptive-learning math software program that provides each girl with a personalized set of problems focused on the areas in which she is weaker. A simple schedule change — moving study hours to after dinner — has also helped. “We previously had those hours in the afternoon, and, frankly, it kept getting preempted by everything you can imagine, like bus delays,” says Schulte. “And the kids needed a break anyway. So now it’s this sort of sacred time after dinner — an hour and a half — and that change is having an effect.”

Tung attributes HomeWorks’ growth to buy-in from the Trenton community: the girls who enroll in the program, their parents and families, their schools. Those close to the program cite Tung’s leadership as the heart and soul of the organization.

“Natalie has dedicated her life — the life of someone who could do many, many powerful things on a grand scale — to focus on this need in this particularly beleaguered city,” says James Kerney II, a trustee of the James Kerney Foundation, which gave HomeWorks a $50,000 grant that purchased its school bus. “She’s got a structure in place to do as much as she possibly can to guarantee that investments that go into the program are going to be used wisely. And that it’s going to serve the longevity of the program.”

Recently, HomeWorks purchased a house near Cadwalader Park in Trenton that is intended to serve as its headquarters and dormitories. It will need to raise an estimated $1.5 million to pay for essential renovations, but when it’s ready, the new building will allow HomeWorks to expand to its desired capacity: 10 scholars from each year of high school, for a total of 40. Eventually, Tung hopes to create chapters of HomeWorks across the country and perhaps even around the world. 

It’s still a work in progress, but already HomeWorks has built a sense of community among its students, the young women say, instilling each with confidence that she can meet her goals in school and life. That’s a message Darae imparts to her housemates daily. 

“I think here, we just want to teach every one of the girls, your voice should be the loudest, your voice should be heard,” she says. “And if they don’t want to hear you, make them. There’s strength in emotion. There’s strength in love. There’s strength in community. And I think that’s why this is the place where you come back and you feel strong. You feel loved, because we want you to have open arms for each and every one that goes here.” 

Kenneth Terrell ’93, a former education editor for U.S. News & World Report , is a writer and editor for AARP.

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Nurse knows best: Dr. Jennifer Rogers paves her own educational path

By Stephanie Hoselton

Reviewed by Raelene Brooks , PhD, RN, Dean of the College of Nursing

Like most high school seniors, Jennifer Rogers did the typical college campus visits. She wondered which classrooms might open the door to academic and career success; in which coffee shops life-changing conversations might be had; and which arenas might host the most nail-biting games of the season.

What might life be like as a young adult? she wondered.

Then, the dreams turned negative. “I got anxiety thinking about it,” Jennifer shares.

So, she went a different route and enrolled in a three-year nursing program in Trenton, New Jersey. Once she graduated, she passed the NCLEX exam and started her nursing career, which she maintained for 10 years without a formal college degree.

At that point, everything changed again.

A surprising start

In 2000, Jennifer and her family relocated to South Carolina. Her husband, Waylon, was hired at a new company, which required him to complete his college degree. He researched a few options and landed on University of Phoenix because the online course offerings best fit his life and work schedule.

“I saw firsthand the flow of how online education works,” Jennifer says. More importantly, she observed this as her own industry was changing and a bachelor’s degree in nursing was increasingly necessary for career enhancement.

After Waylon completed his  bachelor’s degree in business , he encouraged Jennifer to pursue her degree as well. She refers to Waylon as her “best friend and rock,” so she readily accepted his advice, especially when she discovered she could potentially  earn college credit at UOPX for holding an RN license .

With encouragement, flexibility and credit for her prior education and nursing license, Jennifer started the  RN to BSN program  while working full time and raising children who were 2, 7 and 9 years old. How did she do it?

“Good time management,” she states. “And I couldn’t be where I am without the support of my family. I had awesome role models and mentors who saw more in myself than I did.”

Can’t stop, won’t stop

Jennifer begins our conversation with, “I know I can be hard to get a hold of.” And for good reason! She is the chief nursing officer at Prisma Health Hillcrest Hospital and Laurens County Hospital , both part of the largest healthcare system in South Carolina. She wears bright blue scrubs that match the color of her eyes, and she speaks with purpose and kindness as if we were chatting over a cup of coffee versus a video chat on her work break.

All the while, Jennifer’s can-do attitude, resilience and determination shine through every anecdote, answer and observation.

Waylon’s reflection on her college experience underscores these qualities. “For Jennifer to be able to balance a demanding job in healthcare while running a household, [she had to get] the kids into a routine to make day-to-day tasks more efficient,” he says. “Balancing their homework and projects with her own meant staying up late and working on weekends and holidays. There were several personal events and invitations we declined throughout the journey.”

The adjustments and sacrifices were justified when Jennifer graduated with honors in October 2014. But she didn’t savor the moment for long: She decided to go for her master’s degree.

The Rogerses considered it, weighing carefully the career opportunities that might align with a graduate degree. Then there was the allure of the kind of work she could pursue with a Master of Science in Nursing with a concentration in Nursing Education .

“I love teaching and helping. Nursing school is hard, and I like mentoring,” Jennifer says.

She enrolled and continued to work full time while pursuing her master’s. After she completed her MSN in June 2016, she became a nursing education specialist within her organization. That’s where she could gratify her passion for mentoring and sharing her knowledge with newer nurses.

At that point, however, she reached a turning point, one where she spent a lot of time reflecting on a central question so many of us answer throughout our lives. “What do I want to be when I grow up? I was still trying to figure that out!” she says and laughs.

Jennifer had friends in leadership roles and realized the common denominator was the doctorate. Waylon strongly supported her taking this next step. “I simply said, ‘Why stop at a master’s?’ We had previous discussions with family members including my father who always said Jennifer was the brightest and smartest.”

Going the distance

Jennifer acknowledges that the doctorate was the most challenging of the degrees.

“There is some redundancy in nursing theory at the bachelor’s and then master’s levels,” she says. “And I am not being negative about that. The doctorate … classes were another level.”

Jennifer enrolled in the first course for her Doctor of Health Administration in 2018. The classes were tough, but it was the in-person residency requirement that really got to her.

“Having to travel to Phoenix for her initial doctoral residency meant she had to miss our oldest son’s lead performance in the school play Aladdin ,” Waylon says. “This personally hurt Jenn, as a mother, that she for the first time in this journey would miss such an important event in one of our children’s lives.”

That was just one challenge. The other was COVID-19, which would’ve been tough enough as a nurse and mother. Jennifer, however, was smack in the middle of her program when the pandemic hit. She was not only balancing the duties of family life but also head high in coursework and front and center working new roles in infection prevention and regulatory policies at two hospitals.

“Personally, I sat there in awe of what I witnessed as the hospital was holding calls several times a day on how to manage through this crisis,” Waylon says.

Jennifer remembers another call during which she was on the verge of quitting. “I can’t do this,” she cried to her instructor while discussing her dissertation.

Her advisor recommended a pause, but Jennifer had never once taken a break. “I had never done that before and was afraid I would never go back,” Jennifer confides. “Those were stress tears. My instructor told me, ‘I am not asking you to save the world! Just narrow it down.’ For a perfectionist, this helped me take a small piece of the pie.”

Jennifer encountered additional challenges, such as when her program chair changed, but she kept moving.

“No one told me I had to get a doctorate,” she says. “It was about self-fulfillment, which I guess sounds selfish, but I come to work every day because I want to pour into people so ordinary people can see how extraordinary they are.” 

At this point, Jennifer hesitates. “You are going to make me cry,” she says, but this time, they are happy tears. “I only walked for my doctoral degree in Florida because that was the final step. It had been a family effort, and I wanted them to be part of the closure.”

She takes a deep breath. “We did this together! It is hard to describe that feeling when you see the look of pride on your children’s faces.”

Her daughter is set to graduate from college in 2024 with a degree in political science. Jennifer encourages her to look for a position where she will be supported in getting her master’s degree, just as Jennifer’s employers supported her in each of her three UOPX degree programs.

After all, Jennifer Rogers is proof positive that educational journeys can look many different ways. They don’t have to happen immediately after high school or even in person. They just have to help you reach your goals. 

Find out if your employer is one of the more than 1,500 organizations University of Phoenix works with to offer education benefits. 

Meet Phoenixes like Jennifer. Make connections, build relationships and be part of a growing community. Join a chapter . 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stephanie Hoselton has always enjoyed a good story. She gained an English degree from Texas A&M University with the plan to teach or write. As life happens, she fell into recruiting and didn’t look back. Stephanie spent over a decade in agency recruiting, placing candidates at SAP, Verizon and across financial services and healthcare. She started in Talent Acquisition with the University of Phoenix in 2021. She loves hearing candidates tell their career stories and sharing the story that is University of Phoenix.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Dr. Raelene Brooks, dean of the College of Nursing, has been a registered nurse for more than 25 years and practiced extensively in the areas of ICU, trauma and critical care. Her publications include a focus on nursing education, critical care and diversity, equity and inclusion. She is a leader in creating, guiding and launching innovative curriculum.

This article has been vetted by University of Phoenix's editorial advisory committee.  Read more about our editorial process.

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HomeWorks Trenton

HomeWorks Trenton is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that provides an after school boarding program to underserved middle and high school girls in Trenton, NJ. We are a supplement to the Trenton public school system, providing the social-emotional and academic enrichment opportunities of a traditional boarding school without the socio-economic limitations. Our students attend public school during the day and come to HomeWorks once they are dismissed. Here, they receive mentorship and strong academic support, participate in community-oriented activities, and stay overnight in a stable home environment. They board from Sunday nights till Friday mornings so they can re-connect with their families on the weekends. HomeWorks provides underserved students with opportunities that are typically found outside of their urban communities. We are a local solution to a local problem. In the summer of 2017, HomeWorks successfully launched a 4 week residential pilot program, serving 5 young women. This pilot allowed us to better understand the community we are serving, and for students and families to learn about the HomeWorks mission. The participants engaged in book discussions, community service projects, daily family style dinners, and much more. During those four weeks, we saw substantial and inspiring growth in the 5 middle schoolers who participated - from the ways they interacted with one another, engaged in discussions, and connected with the community. The scholars truly embodied our core values of compassion, self-affirmation, and empowerment, growing into the leaders who will positively impact their community.

Here is our 2 minute video about what the young women and their parents had to say about it

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