As a special education teaching assistant at E3 Academy in Providence, Henock Constant \u201918 toured º¬Ð߲ݴ«Ã½\u2019s Kingston Campus so often with his students that he memorized the tour. But the parent of four who attempted college twice without finishing never imagined attending himself.<\/p>\n
So, for Constant, the October 13, 2018, º¬Ð߲ݴ«Ã½ football game proved surreal. He sat in the president\u2019s box as a º¬Ð߲ݴ«Ã½ 10 Under 10 Alumni Award recipient after a college career spanning two decades. \u201cSometimes I forget I\u2019m a college graduate,\u201d he says. \u201cPeople have to remind me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Constant emigrated from Haiti in 1994 at age 19. He attended various schools in New York\u2014 earning a certificate, but no degree. Marriage and children came next. At E3 Academy, his colleagues saw his potential. The principal encouraged him to earn a college degree. In 2013, he called º¬Ð߲ݴ«Ã½\u2019s Alan Shawn Feinstein College of Education and Professional Studies.<\/p>\n
He met with now-Assistant Dean Tammy Warner and mapped a plan to earn a bachelor’s degree. The degree was within reach and he could enroll in evening classes in Providence\u2014close to home. \u201cI just sat there and said, \u2018Why didn\u2019t I do this before? Why did I wait that long?\u2019\u201d Constant says.<\/p>\n
For the next five years, Warner and academic advisor Jeff Johnson rallied Constant to finish. When he hit low points, a perfectly timed, encouraging email would arrive from Nancy Rabidoux, coordinator of Finish What You Started, a program that\u2019s steered more than 300 people like Constant to a º¬Ð߲ݴ«Ã½ degree. Johnson says the team effort, and Constant\u2019s genuine desire to learn, set him apart. \u201cWe could all see a person who was going to be successful,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
At home, Constant was motivated by his children and wife, Daphney, who was seeking her first college degree at the Community College of Rhode Island.<\/p>\n
Now, with a bachelor\u2019s degree done, he\u2019s considering a master\u2019s program with hopes of returning to Haiti to improve education for students with special needs. \u201cGoing in, I just wanted to finish college. Then I realized there are so many other things I can do now,\u201d he says. \u201cA degree has opened a lot of doors.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chris Barrett<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As a special education teaching\u00a0assistant at E3 Academy in Providence, Henock Constant \u201918 toured º¬Ð߲ݴ«Ã½\u2019s Kingston Campus so often with his students that he memorized the tour.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":1196,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spring-2019","architecture-close-up"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1053"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1634,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053\/revisions\/1634"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}