Friday, Dec 10, 2021
Award supports Shontisha Haynes’ lifelong ambition of becoming a teacher
by Adam Grybowski
Set to graduate in December, Shontisha Haynes has been named a recipient of an Executive Women of New Jersey Graduate Awards. Along with a master’s degree and two job offers in hand, the $2,500 award caps the 37-year-old’s lifelong journey to fulfill her ambition to become a teacher.
"This award came just at the right time and means I can finance the rest of my education," Haynes says.
To arrive at this moment, Haynes, a student in Rider’s Master of Arts in Teaching program, has repeatedly overcome obstacles that threw her off the traditional path to becoming a teacher — an ambition she says she has held since age 5.
Haynes became a mother soon after earning an associate degree in early childhood education. Rather than continue to a bachelor’s program immediately, she chose to work at a daycare instead to support her family. After seven years, and another child, Haynes had plateaued professionally. She knew she needed more education to advance. Despite being apprehensive of becoming a full-time student on top of working full time and being a single mother, Haynes chose to take the plunge.
“Although the task seemed near impossible at first, I was up for the challenge,” she says. “I was more determined than ever to show my children that it is never too late to pursue your dreams.”
I was more determined than ever to show my children that it is never too late to pursue your dreams.
In 2019, she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English from Kean University. With her confidence soaring, Haynes was then accepted into Rider’s Post-Baccalaureate Teacher Certification Program with a Master of Arts in Teaching degree. The program is designed for college graduates seeking their initial teacher certification.
Within weeks of being accepted, Haynes was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was the most devastating news she has ever received. With her childhood dream finally within reach, she was facing eight rounds of chemotherapy while taking three classes on top of raising children and stepchildren, including three teenage boys, during a pandemic.
With the support of her teachers, advisers and family, Haynes once again chose to push forward. Her classes and chemotherapy began on the same day. She finished her first semester with all A’s and will graduate with a 4.0 GPA. “I was weak and my hair was falling out, but I was still able to handle everything,” she says.
This semester, Haynes, whose cancer is now in remission, has been student-teaching first grade at B.C. Gregory Elementary School in Trenton. Her candidacy as a certified teacher has received interest from a number of school districts, including a position that will help mitigate learning losses that students experienced during the pandemic. News of her graduate award arrived in October. The purpose of the Executive Women of New Jersey scholarship is to assist recipients in achieving their professional and personal goals.
Kathleen Pierce, the director of Rider’s Master of Arts in Teaching/Post-Baccalaureate Teacher Certification Programs, says that Haynes is a “wise and gentle teacher.”
“While she is independent and fiercely intelligent, Shontisha is also patient and collaborative,” Pierce says. “In class, Shontisha was always a well-read, impeccably prepared and energetic force. In any academic year, I would be grateful to know a Shontisha Haynes as one of my students. But during these pandemic times — while she herself was undergoing the additional burdens of illness, treatment and recovery — Shontisha was a source of steady grace and strength in our midst.”