SEMO banquet honors students from challenging backgrounds

Sharon Berry started college in 1982, but didn't finish until 31 years later in December, when she earned a bachelor's degree in social work from Southeast Missouri State University.

"I had two kids, so I had to put my education on hold," said Berry, who hails from St. Louis and has lived in Cape Girardeau the past eight years. "I had a job but I wanted a career."

Berry and other TRIO students were honored at a banquet Tuesday at the Show Me Center attended by more than 200 people from across the university.

TRIO is a set of federally funded programs and university-based opportunity outreach programs meant to motivate and support students from low-income backgrounds. The programs also cover veterans and students with disabilities, university information said.

Berry, who plans to further her education, became a participant in the university's TRIO/Student Support Services program and was accepted into Southeast's TRIO/McNair Scholars program in January 2012, according to university information. The McNair Scholars Program prepares academically promising students for graduate studies.

In spring 2012, Berry was nominated and selected to participate in the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, D.C., think tank whose scholars and board members advise the federal government on social, economic, environmental and global political issues, the information said. Berry developed a research interest in human trafficking and continued researching the issue as part of her requirements for the TRIO/McNair Scholars Program.

When she graduated in December, she couldn't quite believe it.

"It's still a dream, and if I feel some kind of way ... I sit down and I think about that day," Berry said.

Southeast president Kenneth Dobbins and Debbie Below, vice president of enrollment management and student success and dean of students, noted they, too, were first-generation college students.

Dobbins said it's important to celebrate "what we have here and the partnerships we have been able to put together to make sure that you're successful here. ..."

He referred to three university partners honored Tuesday -- The Scholarship Foundation of St. Louis, the United Negro College Fund and the Wyman Center.

Below said today's statistics on college attainment rates by family income level demonstrate students who come from families at a higher income level are making strides in earning college degrees, but families at lower income levels have made "very little progress in the last 35 years.

"And so my challenge to this group is that we start talking about that, not only peer to peer among educators, but we start talking about it with the students who will benefit the most from the education," Below said.

She said the students are future doctors, psychologists, elementary school teachers and forensic scientists, among other occupations. She challenged them to finish their degrees "and change that trajectory."

rcampbell@semissourian.com

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