Students

Angela Monico, a single mother of three, made the decision to return to school at the age of 44. She wanted to become a chemical dependency counselor, and regretted that finances had prevented her from attending college after high school. “I owned my own business, but my passion for it changed,” she says. So she enrolled at Broome Community College and earned an associate degree, graduating with honors. Her final internship was at Tully Hill Chemical Dependency Treatment Center, where she was offered a Senior Counselor position after graduation. “I was so humbled and grateful to have people around me who believed in me and valued my talents,” she recalls. Continue Reading

Monica Brown spent 20 years working in the field of social work, but it was only when she earned her degree (B.S. in Social Work) that she felt she became a marketable professional. “Most employers want more than just experience, and having a college degree is essential in today’s workplace,” she asserts. “It was shortly after I graduated from SU through University College that my CEO approached me with a proposal for a promotion.” Continue Reading

When John Dau stood at the podium in Hendricks Chapel to speak to his fellow graduates at the 2011 University College Commencement Ceremony, his message was one of hope and gratitude. The Sudanese native reflected on an educational journey that didn’t even begin until he was 17, when he first learned to read and write by scrawling letters in the dirt with his finger. In the rural village where he grew up in South Sudan, he had never even heard of something called “school.” There was only suffering and violence as a civil war raged throughout his childhood. Forced from his home and family at the age of 12, John joined a group of 30,000 homeless refugees who came to be known as the Lost Boys. They wandered, barefoot and hungry, through more than 1,000 miles of desert, until they found refuge in a camp in Ethiopia.

Years later, they were driven off again, and this time ended up at a camp in Kenya, where John first learned his alphabet and emerged as a leader. In 2001, John was settled in Syracuse, along with 150 other Lost Boys. He worked hard and studied hard, continuing his education first at Onondaga Community College and then at Syracuse University as a UC student in the College of Arts and Sciences. His passion to help those left behind inspired Dau to create the John Dau Foundation, raising more than $1 million to build a health clinic in his native Duk County, Sudan. “According to a recent assessment, the mortality rate in Duk has dropped over the past five years,” John says. “This is due in large part to the services now offered by the clinic.” He recently founded the South Sudan Institute with the goal of creating self-sufficiency in communities throughout his homeland. “This is to help our people to become self-sufficient, and discourage handout-seeking strategies.”

John has become something of an international celebrity due to his work and a documentary about his odyssey called “God Grew Tired of Us.” The Sundance Award-winning film, produced by Brad Pitt, directed by Christopher Quinn, and narrated by Nicole Kidman, follows John from the Kenyan refugee camp to his new life in America. As UC’s 2011 UC Student Speaker, John marveled at the educational opportunities available at SU and the help he received as a UC student. “You have achieved the unthinkable,” he said to the graduates. “A degree from a major university in a great country. You should loudly and proudly congratulate yourself!”

Less than a year after Jessica Peptis dropped out of high school in her junior year, she became pregnant with her son Aiden. Struggling to survive as a single mother wasn’t easy, but she had anticipated the hardships and softened the impact by earning a GED before he was born.  The day she enrolled Aiden in pre-K, she went home and opened the phone book to “colleges.” Syracuse University was the first listing she saw, and that day she called University College to set up an appointment with an advisor to discuss part-time study toward a degree. Continue Reading

In 2011, Amanda (Teachout) Riccardo was a licensed cosmetologist working in a Destiny USA hair salon. While chatting with one of her clients, Amanda received a piece of information that would redirect her career and turn her life in a new direction. The client was Mary Pagan, a former student advisor at University College (UC), the home of part-time studies at Syracuse University. She told Amanda about the Arthur O. Eve Higher Education Opportunity Program (HEOP)—the only program of it’s kind in New York State that serves part-time students. HEOP provides financial aid and academic assistance for educationally disadvantaged students who want to earn a college degree. Continue Reading