{"id":55597,"date":"2019-05-08T16:55:45","date_gmt":"2019-05-08T23:55:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/?p=55597"},"modified":"2019-05-09T15:19:49","modified_gmt":"2019-05-09T22:19:49","slug":"graduate-benilde-garcia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/graduate-benilde-garcia\/","title":{"rendered":"Graduate Benilde Garcia: Mom who put education on hold finally gets to walk across the stage"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Benilde Garcia<\/strong>\nremembers sitting on the bleachers at her high school graduation watching,\nthrough tears, a few hundred of her classmates walk across the stage in their\ncaps and gowns, wishing she could be up there with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During her junior year of high school she got pregnant and\ngave birth to a boy. Despite plans to stay in school, her son was born with health\nissues that required her full attention. She dropped out a semester before\ngraduation and gave up her full-ride college scholarship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She later earned her GED and began taking classes at Yavapai\nCollege, but each time she tried to work toward a college degree, something happened\nthat left her having to choose between her children and her education. The decision\nto keep putting her education on hold was easy\u2014family always comes first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then in 2013, she was passed up for a job simply because she\ndidn\u2019t have a college degree. By then, her son had graduated from Northern\nArizona University and her daughter was almost done with high school. It was\ntime to give it another go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Garcia
Garcia poses with her toddler son Daniel.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNAU had exactly what I needed: a hybrid program in applied human\nbehavior that fit perfectly with my work schedule,\u201d Garcia said. \u201cTo sweeten\nthe deal, I knew one of the on-site administrators, Nancy Jensen<\/strong>, from working with her in the past. She was\ninstrumental in inspiring me to enroll.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following in the footsteps of her oldest son, Garcia\nregistered for classes at NAU\u2019s Prescott Valley campus. Determined to finally\nearn a degree, she wasn\u2019t going to let anything get in her way. Then, life\nthrew her some curveballs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within a 30-day period, her home was burglarized, she lost a\njob that she loved and was forced to move.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGoing to class at NAU with instructors and classmates that\nI had grown to love and immersing myself in quality and relevant coursework\ngrounded me and strengthened my resolve to continue on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This time, though, her education was the top priority, and\nshe persevered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Garcia (far right) poses with classmates and Professor Scott Freitag in her last class at NAU.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBeni Garcia is a natural student, she just didn\u2019t know it,\u201d\nsaid Jensen, associate director of the Yavapai Masters of Public Administration\nprogram. \u201cWith encouragement, I have seen Beni grow as a person and as a\nprofessional. For many years, she was unable to fully advance at work because\nshe did not have a bachelor\u2019s degree. Now that she\u2019ll have a bachelor\u2019s degree\nin hand, Beni will excel in her chosen career of serving children and families,\nand with encouragement, seek her master\u2019s degree too!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Garcia, who graduates summa cum laude Saturday morning,\nalready has several job opportunities\u2014opportunities she said would have been\nout of reach without a degree. She hopes to earn a master\u2019s degree and encourage\nand empower all people, especially children and families, to recognize the\nresiliency, hope and healing that is living inside them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t sure I could do this, but it\u2019s finally my turn to\nwalk across the stage,\u201d Garcia said. \u201cSomebody pinch me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"NAU<\/figure>
\n

Carly Banks | NAU Communications
(928) 523-5582 | carly.banks@nau.edu<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Benilde Garcia remembers sitting on the bleachers at her high school graduation watching, through tears, a few hundred of her classmates walk across the stage in their caps and gowns, wishing she could be up there with them. During her junior year of high school she got pregnant and gave birth to a boy. Despite…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":55662,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-community"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}