Jamie Petrilla, EdD

My grandparents immigrated to America unable to speak a word of English and armed with nothing more than 6th grade educations as that was the extent of formal education in their villages. My mother was the first high school graduate in our family, and I was the first college graduate. As their work in unregulated coal mines and garment factories that epitomized the term “sweatshop” ravaged their physical bodies, it never dampened their dreams of seeing their children and grandchildren achieve the American dream via the portal of education.

Inspired by their sacrifice and relentless support, along with my father's example as a Marine who dedicated his life to helping others, I pursued a career in education where I was committed to taking advantage of any opportunity afforded to me to positively impact the lives of others who, like my grandparents, struggled daily to overcome the challenges of living below the poverty line. As a result, in addition to my work in traditional education, I also managed two very successful nonprofit organizations that were dedicated to providing enriching opportunities to individuals living with risk helping to lift them out of poverty. The numerous grant funded programs that I designed enabled me to work with a wide variety of target groups, including economically disadvantaged, dislocated workers, newcomers, inmates, and parolees. 

These experiences have informed my work in higher education where I have dedicated myself to designing high-impact courses that positively affect students long after the courses end equipping them to positively influence their communities and supporting faculty by fostering a positive climate and providing them with tools to help them optimize the impact of their teaching. My dissertation focused on fostering resilience, which I still operationalize every day in my work with online students and faculty as I strive to support optimal online teaching and learning experiences.

A man who was conducting research for his dissertation study stopped me in the street and asked me what I did for a living. I informed him that I teach. He then asked if I could go back in time and had no barriers and could choose any career for myself, which career would I choose to pursue. I replied that I would still teach. He looked befuddled and asked why only teachers give this response. He had asked hundreds of people, and only the teachers opted to stay with the same career. 

I replied, “If teaching is truly your calling and you have witnessed the life-changing power of education seeing your students reach their goals, helping families be lifted out of crippling poverty, and watching your former students take what they learned from you and magnify it to positively impact the world, you can’t imagine yourself doing anything else that could be as impactful or rewarding as teaching.”