By Grambling State University
A Monroe, Louisiana, mother and her daughter will be making Grambling State University’s May 12 commencement exercises an especially significant GramFam graduation celebration.
Suzzon Jiles and her daughter Trinity will be graduating together, with Suzzon Jiles earning her bachelor’s degree in Child Development while Trinity Jiles will be presented with her bachelor’s degree in Biology.
“Grambling State has changed my life,” Suzzon Jiles said. “I’m now educated and soon to be degreed! I have enjoyed every connection I have made here, finding friends for a lifetime and a plethora of knowledge about early childhood education. I’m very much grateful for that. I was inspired to become a child care worker/owner after being number two of 10 siblings. I helped my mom raise my younger siblings and loved teaching them as well. So, I’ve kind of been doing it most of my life.”
Trinity Jiles thanks GSU for changing her for the better.
“Coming to this institution has taught me leadership skills, time management, and how to grow as a young adult,” Trinity Jones said. “It also has taught me how to socialize with people after joining the prestigious sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha Inc.”
Both of the Jiles’ admitted matriculating through GSU during a pandemic didn’t make for easy times.
“Organic chemistry was very hard for me due to COVID and the classes being 100% online,” said Trinity Jiles. “I’m more of a hands-on person. But the faculty and staff helped me tremendously. The biology department at Grambling State University is like family to me. They’ve helped me so much even in other areas. Dr. (Dagne) Hill and Ms. (Angela) McMurray were such a big help to me. Ms. Laquetta Anderson helped so much advising me for classes and Dr. (Gernerique) Stewart in the chemistry department helped me understand chemistry and I’m very thankful for that.”
Suzzon Jiles said that duties as a wife and mother while being a GSU student amid the COVID-19 pandemic became a tough balancing act.
“There were many difficulties I faced working and going to school,” she said. “It was overwhelming at times being a wife and a working mother. There were long hours spent studying, not to mention that COVID hit right when I enrolled at Grambling. I never got to enjoy my college experience, and I never even got to tour the campus. But thank God I made it this far, and I will continue.”
Suzzon Jiles offered special thanks to three GSU faculty members for helping her transition from nontraditional student to upcoming college graduate.
“Dr. (Suzanne) Mayo-Theus (a lecturer in GSU’s Department of Family and Consumer Sciences) really was an inspiration to me. She taught me early childhood (education) and what it takes to teach. She was never too busy to listen, and most of all she welcomed me. Dr. Mayo made me feel like I matter. We need more teachers like her. (Director of GSU’s Student Conduct Office) Inetha Wimberly is such an awesome person with a caring nature. She was another special part of my Grambling journey. While I never met Kisha Altheimer (an administrative assistant in GSU’s Department of Family and Consumer Sciences) in person, she has always been so inviting. I was a transfer student and she guided me through the process as if I had known her forever.”
Suzzon Jiles’ goal is to open her own child development center in Monroe while Trinity Jiles hopes to enroll in the Meharry Medical College School of Dentistry.
“In grade school, science was my favorite subject,” Trinity Jiles said. “We took a career path test my freshman year of high school and my results came back saying I should be in the “health care field” and I was invited to a school of medicine camp at the University of Houston, in Houston, Texas. We shadowed doctors and surgeons and I knew I wanted to major in biology when I got to college. So what I really want to do is become a pediatric dentist. Grambling has set me up to hopefully live out and realize that dream, and I’m so appreciative to the university and everyone here who’s helped me.”
