Mother's Day Special Episode: Highlighting All In Podcast Moms

In this episode in honor of Mother's Day, we revisit some clips from past All In podcast student guests who are moms. The host Marc Goldberg also interviews his own mom, Nancy Yelenik Goldberg, who describes her experience as a returning, parenting student at the local community college in the 1970's taking classes in the emerging field of computer science. She elaborates on the trailblazing career she had as as a programmer and eventual executive leader in the technology field and talks about the civic engagment she is involved in these days. 

The first All In clip is from an early season one episode of the podcast during the pandemic with Nellisha Moore, a student from Chemeketa Community College. The next one is from a conversation with Cristina Cruz, an early childhood education career pathways student from Lane Community College. Following that are highlights from an interview with Shalease Williams from Portland Community College in season one. The  next clip is from Emily Geise, a graduate of Klamath Community College and employee of Cascade Comprehensive Care. Lastly, there are highlights from an interview with Lynne Hamblin, a student at Rogue Communtiy College. Each of these All In moms share different thoughts about the intersections between their community college experiences and their own children and families.

The All In: Student Pathways Forward podcast is a part of Oregon’s participation in the National Skills Coalition SkillSPAN network and supported by the Lumina Foundation.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_06 0:00

Welcome to the All-In Student Pathways Forward Podcast, focused on elevating community college student voices, along with those of college executives, policymakers, and higher education advocates to shape inclusive policies, practice, and partnerships. This is the host, Mark Goldberg, and this season the podcast features students of quality, career pathways, and non-degree credential programs. Thanks for listening in. This is a special All-An Mother's Day episode that includes some quotes from some of the amazing parenting student moms I've gotten to know on the pod over the past two seasons through their interviews. I also recorded a conversation with my own mom about her community college experience in the 1970s as a returning parenting student, studying in the emerging field at the time of computer science's death, that led to a pretty extraordinary and trail-basing career as a programmer and eventual executive leader in the technology field, an industry historically dominated by male workers and leaders. It was pretty remarkable to revisit her own community college journey and talk about the civic engagement she's involved in these days. Here's a clip from one of the first all-in podcast students I interviewed in season one, Nalisha Moore, who was a parenting student at Chemecita Community College in Salem, Oregon.

SPEAKER_02 1:22

I am a mom, so schooling my son and myself from home was quite a challenge. Parenting, studies, working, you know, the list, the list can go on in adult life, but the biggest one would just have been, you know, homeschooling my son and homeschooling myself and really trying to juggle those two. But we pushed through. We got through. How my son views me, he sees me putting in time and effort to get my studies done. It's the same thing he has to do from home, putting time and effort to get his studies done. So it's not like I'm asking him to do something that I'm not doing. I've learned that time is extremely valuable between studying and you know, trying to fit in personal time and also work time and everything. I love my time now. It's super precious. I'm on the right path. So uh I'm I'm very thankful for that.

SPEAKER_06 2:26

This next clip is from Christina Cruz, an early childhood education career pathway student from Lane Community College in Eugene, Oregon.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

So being in college is I feel blessed they came back and I don't regret it. As a single parent uh mother, it's challenging to be raising the teenagers and also uh manage a full-time job. And the hard part will say is by the end of the day when I have to do my homework and I'm very tired, like it physically and mentally, and sometimes I say, oh my god, I don't think I can make it today. But what I do is I just take a nap, quick nap and rest and get up and do my homework, stay up late, but you can do it if you really want to. I came back to college and I feel happy, I feel great, uh love to achieve goals and you learn a lot. I love being in school. It's hard, but it's worth it.

SPEAKER_06 3:26

Shalise Williams was a career pathways parenting and foster parenting student at Portland Community College. Here's a blurb from her interview from season one.

SPEAKER_05 3:36

When I became a foster parent, I had a kid that went to Albina Head Start. And, you know, they sent in paperwork and different notices. One of the days when his cubbies had some paperwork inviting parents to come to this meeting that was going to help you with college, help you get some kind of certificate to further on your career. Biggest success is completing the certificate and my degree. That's been a goal of mine, a lifelong goal of mine, just to have a degree. You know, when you have kids and they're moving along through school, it's easy to tell them that you need to go to college, but it's better to show them. And so I wanted to show my son that it is possible to, you know, achieve this goal that I've been telling you that you should have. And so that's really one of my biggest forces behind just sticking to it and really getting it done. With this particular program, it's more personal. It's more, you know, one-on-one. You feel like when we were in there, we were all like a little family. There's all walks of life, different ages. We had 19-year-olds, we had 50-year-olds, you know, we had people in the middle, we had different nationalities, some people that had just come to America from their home countries. I met people that I probably may not have encountered in my everyday life. I was able to make friends with them, learn about their lives and their cultures. They were able to learn about my life and my culture. So that's what I liked about it too. They didn't just prepare you for college, but they prepared you for the real world. This is who you're going to encounter when you get in the workspace, like all walks of life. So we're a small knit class and everyone's there for the same goal. And so that's what I liked about that. We helped each other. It was like a ladder, you know, if one couldn't get up, we reached down and pull them up. So no one in that class failed. I was on the dean's list, you know, on this program. Yeah, I was on the president's list. I got straight A's. I'm had gotten good grades, but I never made the dean's list and the resident's list. So I, you know, I was patting myself on the back. So that was really awesome for me. Yes, you can do it. And a lot of times, depending on your background or your circumstance, you don't always get those achievements or those pats on the back or those encouragements. So to come to this class and everybody from different walks of life are all helping each other, encouraging you. That just made it so much better. I also got my BSL, which is more than just CPR classes. It's the CPR training that paramedics receive. I have kids. So I learned how to resuscitate a child. I learned how to resuscitate an adult using the same materials that a paramedic would use. I might have still been trying to figure out how the system works without this particular program. It's teaching me how to get my next generation through the college system. It's not just going to stop with me. It's going to continue on through my family. And I'm pretty sure it's going to do the same with others. I know what classes you need and how to find the classes you need for the program and just have a clear concept of what it is that you're trying to get to and how to get there. So I'm so thankful for this. On-site daycare would be great for students. You might have an hour window in between classes where you have to run and go get your kid and take them to wherever they need to be and then come back. And then you're just so worn out, or you're just so focused on, well, where am I going to take my kids? Can I complete this program? Or even an on-site school for kids would be wonderful.

SPEAKER_06 7:38

I'd like to welcome my guests for this special episode of the All-In Podcast. This individual happens to be the first community college student I've ever known. Someone I have deep admiration for and have been inspired in so many ways since a very young age. My very own mom, Nancy Yelinick Goldberg. Welcome, mom, to the All-In Student Pathways Forward Podcast. Thank you, Mark. Glad to be here. Thanks for taking the time. And as I think you know, this podcast has centered community college student and graduate voices to shape inclusive policies, programs, and partnerships. And I thought it would be nice to get a chance to chat with you as a former community college student. So would just start by asking if you could talk about your experience as a returning student at Burlington County College in New Jersey, which is now called Rowan College at Burlington County. Why did you enroll in classes and what did you study?

unknown 8:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 8:37

Well, first I did have a four-year degree in education and taught for a few years and then had you and your brother. And when I was ready to go back, my field was music. The humanities funding in the state of New Jersey had pretty well dried up. But we had several friends, then a brother-in-law, who were all in the computer science world and all knew of my passion for puzzles and solving problems. And they encouraged me to look into taking classes in computer science. And I wasn't sure. I looked and found that Burlington County, now Rowan, had opportunities for me to explore what I might like to do. There were three areas that I was interested in: one mathematics, another was accounting, because I wanted my son to become an accountant someday.

SPEAKER_06 9:36

Which sound was ephema?

SPEAKER_01 9:38

I forgot. And the third one being what these friends and my brother-in-law were saying that you might really enjoy it. So I decided I would start at Burlington County College because it was accessible and affordable. And it was very interesting because I went back into an algebra refresher course. It happened to be somebody I had graduated from high school with who was the instructor of that class. And I went in and said, I don't remember anything, but give me a week and I think I'll be good to go. So he gave me a week and I came back and took the exam and I aced it. So I was gonna pursue some of those classes. But I also was interested in accounting. And so I took a first class in accounting and I took a first class in program logic flow is flow charting. It just was an interesting experience. I really enjoyed getting back into the math. I really did not like the accounting. So I thought I'd push that off on somebody else in the family who pushed it off, right? But from the moment I started in the programming class, I knew that this was something I had a passion for. The logic flow is very similar to music form and analysis that I had studied when I was at Montclair. It's just like, wow, I've done this before. I can really grab on to this. One of the things that kind of pushed me in the direction, the instructor was from the work field in computer science. And he did a test that he gave to everybody who was in the class. And he actually took the time after he got the results to call me at home and to say if this is something that you would be interested in, if you like this, you could have a very big career in it. I was just really super impressed by that because he took the time to really analyze it and to reach out to a student, a student who was a mom with school-age kids, and he was very invested in the students and very accessible, more accessible than any professor I'd had at Montclair. So it was a factor of accessibility cost, and then just the investment that the instructor was making in me.

SPEAKER_06 11:57

Yeah, and it also sounds like because they had the practical work experience in the field.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

Absolutely. And it was still a relatively new field. There were very few women in it at the time, although there were three students that were going there who were returning who were all women, and all did end up with careers in computer science, all three of us. I took some programming classes, not just the logic classes, really, really enjoyed it, continued with some math courses, which actually helped. And I hit a crossroad. And the crossroad was I probably had enough credits to get the associate's degree. But at the same time as that was all happening, my neighbor's a friend's husband started his own computer programming company. And I looked at him one day and said, you know, I am studying this and I'm really excited and interesting. I love it. And he offered me a job. So I was at a crossroads of do I continue, then maybe go to a four-year school to finish up for a full degree. And I went to the advisors at Burlington County to ask them, what should I do? And they basically said, this is a really great field. And I think you should take the job because a job experience at that point was they felt more relevant than any paper. So I took that advice. And I was very fortunate because I was able to work for somebody who, if you were sick, I could stay home. I could go in on the weekends or at night if I needed to. So it was a very flexible work schedule. And that's how I got started in the field. And my sense of the community college experience was a very positive one because it was affordable. I felt as if the instructors in every one of the classes, but this one in particular, were just very, very supportive.

SPEAKER_06 13:57

I remember being at the college as a little one when you were in class. I think just from conversation we had earlier about the value and importance in the technology and computer science field of certifications and credentials, and realized it was such an emerging industry at the time that there weren't those credentials as there are now. But it sounds like from the courses you took, you got the skills and competencies to be able to then bring that to the workplace and apply those skills.

SPEAKER_01 14:33

Right. And in a field where that kind of exposure of actually hands-on working was very significant at that time. Going forward 10 years, I don't think that would have been the case.

SPEAKER_06 14:46

Yeah. So just coming back to your experience as a parenting student, wanted to ask what that was like for you and how did you make it all work?

SPEAKER_01 14:59

I did. I made it work. I was able if you were sick or school day off or whatever because of flexibility. I would say that the instructors that I had were very understanding. There and at CLC here in the Chicago area, there was sort of this rule that here's a number. If you're not going to make it to class, let me know. And there was some flexibility in that because I think most of the students had other obligations. They were mostly working as well and families, and there was more support, I would say, for that. But there was not support for childcare.

SPEAKER_06 15:40

And still a challenge, however, many years later. But as a little one, I do remember vividly the campus and the playground, and remember somehow with my older brother Joel hanging out when you were in class. Appreciate you sharing more of just that experience as a returning student and a parenting student. I want to come back to just your career in this computer science field and ask if you could talk about how that experience at Burlington County College helped you in your career. And can you share a bit more about your career trajectory in that field over a number of years?

SPEAKER_01 16:24

Sure. So getting that first job was just a stroke of luck, I would say. And when he hired me, he said, if you do well, you'll do well. If you're not good at it, I don't have to keep you on. And so I proved myself. And the first job that I worked on as a rookie was a transmitter plant that was going to be installed in New York City at the World Trade Center that had connections to NBC Studios at Rockefeller Center. I worked for him for five years. And then we found out that we were moving from South Jersey to the Chicago area. So I left, but I did get a job working for a trading firm, which I had no background in, none whatsoever. It was like, okay, well, I can learn, and I did. So I got a job in downtown Chicago at the options exchange building. Eventually we moved to the Sears Tower. There were 25 programmers, and I was the third woman. And then it grew to a very large number. Eventually, there were more than 100 closing in on 200 in that department. It was a firm that had very high principles. They were honest, very caring people, and supportive of family. I was working with mathematicians and I needed to take some more math. So I got in touch with CLC, the college of Lake County, and I took some calculus classes there. And I again looked to the community college because of affordability. And in that case, then I needed nighttime classes because I was working, getting dinner, going off to class. So I worked for a super, super bright guy, and he was one of the most brilliant programmers I ever encountered. I was on his team and he got sick. He had a heart attack, needed surgery, and he said, Nancy, can you hold a fort for me? And so that was how I entered into the beginning stages of management of supervising people. And it just kind of grew from there. So I ended up with a fairly large number of teams. It was one team, and then I was asked to take on another team and a third team. And that lasted for a number of years. And then I was offered to head up quality assurance. So I took that on and I did that until I retired.

SPEAKER_06 19:04

And that was quality assurance at that point.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

It was a private partnership that was bought out by Nations Bank. And then eventually Nations Bank and Bank of America came together. So it got to be more and more corporate, which has its pluses and minuses. And so for the last five years that I was there, I was the head of quality assurance. And sitting in management meetings, I was the only woman. And that had some challenges to it. I also was asked to sit on a committee to help encourage young women to try to get into management. And I had several challenges along the way where I just used my intuition and humanity, things that just made sense to me in terms of being supportive of staff that I don't think some of my male colleagues would have thought of. It was something that I kept growing with that, and I think that I helped my teams grow with that too.

SPEAKER_06 20:05

So well, it's remarkable to revisit your career, that chapter for you, starting at the community college in South Jersey, and how that led to a whole, I guess you could say second career, but a primary career for many years.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

More years than I taught for sure.

SPEAKER_06 20:25

Yeah. Well, and I know that you've retired from that work, but you've stayed active. So there's been a lot of conversations about the importance of civic engagement and then the role of higher education and community colleges. And wanted to ask if you could speak to where and how you see these connections in the civic engagement work that you've done over the last five plus years.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Well, actually more than that, but I've been extremely active and in some leadership roles for the last five or more years with the League of Women Voters. So I am currently the leadership chair president of our local league. So I serve in that capacity, and I also serve on the executive board of the League of Women Voters of Lake County, which is an interleague organization of multiple leagues. And while most of my civic engagement locally and at the county level have been more in voter education, voter services, candidate forums, voter guides, things of that nature, all with the goal of educating voters and getting them to vote and to know that their voice counts. We have done programs which I've helped to organize. We're doing one next week on the asylum process for refugees, which I'm really looking forward to, this immigration lawyer that I've worked with before. But at the county level, although I've done A little bit of voter registration at CLC, their Lakeshore campus, and supported candidate forums that have been presented at CLC in terms of background work. I think there's a lot of overlap in other areas that the league is involved in, and that's advocacy for things like mental health boards, early childhood education, birth to five program that the league supports. Another one has to do with eliminating pretrial incarcerations, which I think has a very strong impact. The law went into effect probably January 2023. It removed the cash bail process because in study we found that it was impoverished people who were not able to come up with the bail and would be incarcerated and not able to work, not able to support their families, not able to go to school or all of the above. Whereas people who were of means or had connections to means would be able to be bailed and go about their normal life of going to school or working or whatever. So that's something that we're taking very seriously. And Birth to Five is a program in the state of Illinois that tries to work with underserved areas to be able to provide guaranteed education for babies and young children. And I think that all might tie in.

SPEAKER_06 23:27

Yeah, with the need for parents in that case to have access to education and training for better careers. And then also know that students need mental health supports. And colleges have done a lot of work to provide that in different ways, either in-house or in partnership. And I think just overall that civic engagement of the active members of their community is all tied to the community college system, which I know that you've shared the opportunity to engage with elected officials at the local level, with the mayor of the city and your state representatives and beyond. And so you continue to inspire the rest of your family as you are extremely active in civic engagement. And so, with this, I just wanted to say thanks, mom, for taking the time to share your own community college journey and how it propelled you into this amazing career in the tech field for many years. And also, just more importantly, thank you for being such an incredible mom and grandma, who's always modeled the importance of family and community and love and hard work and kindness and equity and courage. And just wanted to say I love you and happy Mother's Day.

SPEAKER_01 24:48

Oh, thank you.

SPEAKER_06 24:49

I love you too. Emily Geezey is a graduate of Klamath Community College in Klamath Falls, Oregon, who talks about her experience as a parenting student at the college and then as a worker in a quality job at Cascade Comprehensive Care in season two.

SPEAKER_03 25:12

Biggest highlight of my experience was probably graduating at the top of my class, especially since it was, oh geez, I think I had been out of high school something like 15, 16 years by the time I went through the program. So I can tell you that Cascade Comprehensive Care, they check all the boxes. They actually care about their employees. They understand sometimes life happens. I do have small kids. I have a one-year-old daughter, a three-year-old son, and a seven-year-old son. And kids are great, but they like to bring home various little things. For instance, in February, ended up we had COVID, and I was able to work from home and not miss out on work. So in a time where having employment is good, especially with our economy, I wasn't missing out on work. And the company as a whole, they're super understanding. If you have the capability of working remote, they allow you to work remote. I can't stress enough how great of a place and how happy I am with my career at Cascade above and beyond the best job that I've ever had.

SPEAKER_06 26:27

Next is a clip from Lynn Hamlin, who's a parenting student at Rogue Community College in Grants Pass, Oregon, who began her academic journey in the GED program on campus.

SPEAKER_04 26:37

Once the twins started at Head Start on the RCC campus, it was Head Start program said, Hey, we'll pay for you to get your GED. And I said, Well, I guess so. It's right there on the campus. We're there together. And it was my 41st birthday that I started my GED prep classes. Scared out of my mind, so scared. But I fell in love instantly with the whole process, the people, just how much care and concern the teachers, the office staff, and everybody has for all of the students, and really fell in love with the diversity of the classroom. There was kids that didn't want to finish high school the traditional way. There was homeschool kids, there was people older than I was. And we just all meshed really well together and took care of each other and really, really pushed each other to get it done together. I think the college has always done a really good job of having online classes available even before COVID for moms at home or evening classes for working families or only daytime classes for when kids are at school. The school does have so many options to try to accommodate everybody's lifestyle. It has also opened up so many doorways to me where I never could have before, just even having my getting my GED changed, all of that. I could go anywhere from there where I never had that option before. I think the biggest takeaway is just don't ever let fear stand in your way. Even small steps are a step ahead.