This week’s Project 100+ memory comes from Octavia Nash.  She was born and raised in Elk Township, which is located between Clayton and Glassboro.  She went to public schools and graduated from Delsea Regional High School in 1999.  She was raised by her grandmother, and she worked at a local factory, Sealsweet, in Glassboro until it closed in the late 1980s.  She passed away in 2015.  She enrolled at Rowan University in the summer of 1999 and graduated in the Spring of 2006 with a major in History and minors in Political Science, Africana Studies, and International Studies.  Her first job after graduating was at Cumberland County College, where she was an educational talent search counselor. The position was part of the federally-funded TRIO program and was designed to recruit low-income students to apply for college, to help them with their applications, and to prepare them to succeed once enrolled.  While she was at Cumberland County College working in the TRIO program, she enrolled in an accelerated Masters of Business Administration program offered by Georgian Court University.  She finished the MBA degree in 2008.  She continued as a counselor in the TRIO program and was then promoted to Director of the program in 2011.  The following year, she took a position at Cooper Medical School as the Program Coordinator in the Office of Diversity Affairs.  There, she was responsible for pipeline initiatives that sought to recruit underrepresented students to enter the medical field.  There were separate programs targeting those students at all three levels:  elementary school, high school, and college.  In 2015, she transferred to the Glassboro campus to become an academic advisor for the chemistry and biochemistry programs.  She loved working one-on-one with students, helping them in their academic journey from newly enrolled to graduating seniors.  At the same time, she also began teaching courses as an adjunct professor for Rowan.  For example, she taught Career Planning and Development, Financial Wellness and Computers & Society. For Octavia, one of the benefits of being a Rowan employee was the ability to take college courses of interest for free.  She enrolled in the Cybersecurity program, pursuing a certificate of undergraduate study in this field.  Those courses, combined with her ongoing adjunct teaching online, sparked an interest in Instructional Design.  In 2021, she transitioned to a new position in this new area of interest, namely working as an instructional designer for Rowan Global.  In this position, she works with faculty to help them design content for online courses.  She also continues to teach as adjunct. 

***** 

From an early age, I dreamed of going to a Historically Black College or University (HBCU).  Like many African American young people, this dream arose out of my watching the television series, “A Different World.”  I was devastated when I realized, in high school, that my family’s finances would not allow me to attend one.  At this same time, an Admissions representative from Rowan University, Mr. Keith Dickens, came to my high school to recruit.  He told me about the Educational Opportunity Fund (EOF) program and how it would provide not only financial support but also social and academic support.  So, I applied, was accepted, and began at Rowan in the EOF program.  This program began during the summer, so I started just five days after my high school graduation.  That program was very intense.  It required a lot from young students. It was disciplined and very rigorous.  It was my first view of what was going to be expected of me at the college level.  One of the things that I will never forget is that they took us to the Bunce Green and told each of us to pick out “our spot,” namely the place we expected to sit during graduation in four years.  While I did not fully appreciate this exercise at the time, there were numerous times in the coming years when I did indeed use the motivation of that “spot” to help me overcome various challenges that I was facing.

Despite the EOF program, I felt lost during my first year at Rowan. I did not yet have a major and did not know what I wanted to study or do after college.  In my second semester, a friend asked me to join her in taking a course, African American History since 1865, with Dr. Gary Hunter.  I went in to the course thinking that I knew this subject very well because I considered myself well-read in this area.  It was completely different than what I expected, primarily because of the way he asked us to think.  We were asked to think in a way that I had never been pushed to think before.  It is hard to explain, but he didn’t just tell us what happened.  He always followed up any lecture topic by asking us “why?”  He didn’t straight tell us the answer but pushed us to try to imagine why things followed this path and not another.  He directed us, pushing us deeper with yet more “why?” questions as soon as we understood one level of the subject.  Dr. Hunter was the first person that I had ever met who had been to Africa.  He challenged my stereotypical ideas about the continent, and those conversations still hold a special place in my heart. It was because of him that I developed a new dream, to visit Africa, which I did in 2006 (going to Egypt) and 2008 (when I went to South Africa) and in 2011 (when I went to Ghana).  I am going to Somalia in 2024 to meet family I connected with on Ancestry.com.

One of the turning points of my life came about in the very last week of Dr. Hunter’s class.  I found out that I was pregnant. I went into his office, crying, and thinking that my life as I knew it was over.  Dr. Hunter, however, comforted me and told me plainly that my life was not over and that I would have the child and then return and finish my degree.  I don’t have words to express my gratitude to Dr. Hunter for his support of me in this difficult time.  Because of him, I made a promise to myself that I would return to Rowan, and I did. 

During the coming year, I had my son and took two classes at the local community college.  I had decided that when I came back to Rowan that I would be a history major, as I wanted to show Dr. Hunter that I had followed his advice.  I was devastated when a family friend, and the Department of History’s administrative assistant, Denise Williams, called me to tell me that Dr. Hunter had passed away.  This was May of 2003.  I returned that Fall, and I was very different this time around.  Because of my son, I was focused and determined. I still did not know what I wanted to do for a career, but I knew that I wanted to be a history major.  I had a federal work study job in the History Department, working for Ms. Williams.  I also part-time job at Camden County College in Upward Bound department, which was part of the TRIO program.  I worked two days a week at Camden County College, and the other three days a week I took classes while working at the History Department in the hours between.

I remember several classes.  One of them was a small seminar-style class with David Applebaum. I enjoyed the class size and the amazing dialogue that we had.  He let us talk and control the conversation.  He could be very outgoing and engaging outside of class, but he turned it over to us in the classroom. 

Another class that I remember was Civil War and Reconstruction with you, Dr. Carrigan.  It was my favorite class for a specific reason.  My grandmother was from the Deep South, and I loved learning about the events that led up to the Civil War because of this personal background.  In fact, I can admit now that before I took this class, I was not even certain that the Civil War had been about slavery.  I had heard much about states’ rights, but this class showed me the clear role of slavery in the war.  Learning about this period, which did so much to shape the lives of my ancestors, was truly rewarding.  This course also counted for the Africana Studies minor, and so I added this field of concentration at this time.  I also added the International Studies minor as well.

One of the experiences that I remember was being asked to present my research at the Phi Alpha Theta conference hosted by Rowan. I think it was on a paper that I wrote on Islam and American Slavery, but it has been many years now.  In any event, I was incredibly nervous about this presentation, but I remember that you and your wife sat in the front row and gave me supportive gestures and looks, letting me know that I could make it through.

Outside of my classes, I must mention Denise Williams.  She was not only my boss as a work study student but also my academic advisor, my mentor, and really an honorary member of my family.  The chair, Edward Wang, was very supportive of me, being especially understanding of my responsibilities as a mother as well as a student.

I was very honored to be the first recipient winner of the Gary Hunter Memorial Scholarship.  Winning this award helped me feel that I had indeed kept my promise to him.  I was also proud to be inducted into Phi Alpha Theta, the history honors society. 

I look back now and know that the history major was the right one for me.  The focus of the major was on asking students to think deeply about why things happened in the past, on the ability to analyze and evaluate and question.  This was perfect for me, and I still use this way of thinking, which I was first exposed to by Dr. Hunter, in my life and work to the present.

When I participated in commencement in the Spring of 2006, I sat in the very exact spot I had chosen during the EOF program.  My son, grandmother, and family were all in attendance.

*****

This is part of the Department of History’s “Project 100+,” an ongoing collection of memories by Glassboro State College and Rowan University alumni and staff that began as part of the celebration of the 100^th anniversary of the founding of Glassboro Normal School, later Glassboro State College, and now Rowan University.  Due to interest in the project, the number of interviewees continues to grow.  Thanks to Laurie Lahey for helping proofread and edit the final versions.  Email carrigan@rowan.edu with questions or corrections.  You can find the Link to all of the Project 100 and Project 100+ entries on the Web:  https://chss.rowan.edu/departments/history/alumni_highlights/project_100/