{"id":19224,"date":"2026-02-05T10:23:58","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T15:23:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/?p=19224"},"modified":"2026-02-05T10:23:58","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T15:23:58","slug":"taking-college-career-insights-to-high-school-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/2026\/02\/05\/taking-college-career-insights-to-high-school-students\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking College Career Insights to High School Students"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.kadence-column19224_d1c725-80 > .kt-inside-inner-col{padding-right:var(--global-kb-spacing-lg, 3rem);padding-bottom:var(--global-kb-spacing-lg, 3rem);padding-left:var(--global-kb-spacing-lg, 3rem);}.kadence-column19224_d1c725-80 > .kt-inside-inner-col,.kadence-column19224_d1c725-80 > .kt-inside-inner-col:before{border-top-left-radius:0px;border-top-right-radius:0px;border-bottom-right-radius:0px;border-bottom-left-radius:0px;}.kadence-column19224_d1c725-80 > .kt-inside-inner-col{column-gap:var(--global-kb-gap-sm, 1rem);}.kadence-column19224_d1c725-80 > .kt-inside-inner-col{flex-direction:column;}.kadence-column19224_d1c725-80 > .kt-inside-inner-col > .aligncenter{width:100%;}.kadence-column19224_d1c725-80 > .kt-inside-inner-col:before{opacity:0.3;}.kadence-column19224_d1c725-80{position:relative;}@media all and (max-width: 1024px){.kadence-column19224_d1c725-80 > .kt-inside-inner-col{flex-direction:column;justify-content:center;}}@media all and (max-width: 991px){.kadence-column19224_d1c725-80 > .kt-inside-inner-col{flex-direction:column;justify-content:center;}}<\/style>\n<div class=\"wp-block-kadence-column kadence-column19224_d1c725-80\"><div class=\"kt-inside-inner-col\">\n<p>Leaders from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wilmu.edu\/behavioralscience\/indexs.aspx\">College of Social and Behavioral Sciences<\/a> are going directly into the classroom, offering their personal and professional insights to high school students considering their path to higher education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Nicole Ballenger<\/strong>, J.D., Law, Policy, and Political Science chair, and <strong>Dr. Jake Andrews<\/strong>, Criminal Justice chair, visited&nbsp;Howard High School&nbsp;of Technology in Wilmington to share information about the Legal Studies and Criminal Justice programs at Wilmington University. Prior to her work in academia, Ballenger worked as a paralegal and as an attorney in private practice with an emphasis on civil litigation. Dr. Andrews retired from the New Castle County Police Department as a patrol executive officer after 20 years of service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They provided valuable knowledge, insights, and their real-world perspectives on law enforcement and legal career options at WilmU, ranging from policing to paralegal to law&nbsp;school. The students are all juniors and are contemplating careers in public service. The students were accompanied by&nbsp;<strong>Dr. Leon Wilson<\/strong>, a Howard&nbsp;High&nbsp;social studies teacher who earned his doctoral degree at WilmU.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Leaders from the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences are going directly into the classroom, offering their personal and professional insights to high school students&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":19235,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[286,1051,14,15],"class_list":["post-19224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-news","tag-college-of-social-and-behavioral-science","tag-law-public-policy-and-criminal-justice-degrees","tag-wilmington-university","tag-wilmu"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":2,"label":"ACADEMIC NEWS"}],"post_tag":[{"value":286,"label":"College of Social and Behavioral Science"},{"value":1051,"label":"Law Public Policy and Criminal Justice Degrees"},{"value":14,"label":"Wilmington University"},{"value":15,"label":"WilmU"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/College-of-Social-and-Behavioral-Sciences-480x480.jpg",480,480,true],"author_info":{"display_name":"Mckayla Imperatrice","author_link":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/author\/mckayla\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":2,"name":"ACADEMIC NEWS","slug":"academic-news","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":559,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":460,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":2,"category_count":460,"category_description":"","cat_name":"ACADEMIC NEWS","category_nicename":"academic-news","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":286,"name":"College of Social and Behavioral Science","slug":"college-of-social-and-behavioral-science","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":843,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":10,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":1051,"name":"Law Public Policy and Criminal Justice Degrees","slug":"law-public-policy-and-criminal-justice-degrees","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":1608,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":3,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":14,"name":"Wilmington University","slug":"wilmington-university","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":571,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":357,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":15,"name":"WilmU","slug":"wilmu","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":572,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":291,"filter":"raw"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19224"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19243,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19224\/revisions\/19243"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}