{"id":3563,"date":"2021-11-09T20:33:51","date_gmt":"2021-11-09T20:33:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/?p=3563"},"modified":"2025-03-27T15:31:32","modified_gmt":"2025-03-27T19:31:32","slug":"roshell-brown-defying-the-expectations-achieving-her-dream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/2021\/11\/09\/roshell-brown-defying-the-expectations-achieving-her-dream\/","title":{"rendered":"Roshell Brown: Defying the Expectations, Achieving Her Dream"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.kadence-column3563_49834c-7c > .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-column3563_49834c-7c > .kt-inside-inner-col,.kadence-column3563_49834c-7c > .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-column3563_49834c-7c > .kt-inside-inner-col{column-gap:var(--global-kb-gap-sm, 1rem);}.kadence-column3563_49834c-7c > .kt-inside-inner-col{flex-direction:column;}.kadence-column3563_49834c-7c > .kt-inside-inner-col > .aligncenter{width:100%;}.kadence-column3563_49834c-7c > .kt-inside-inner-col:before{opacity:0.3;}.kadence-column3563_49834c-7c{position:relative;}@media all and (max-width: 1024px){.kadence-column3563_49834c-7c > .kt-inside-inner-col{flex-direction:column;justify-content:center;}}@media all and (max-width: 991px){.kadence-column3563_49834c-7c > .kt-inside-inner-col{flex-direction:column;justify-content:center;}}<\/style>\n<div class=\"wp-block-kadence-column kadence-column3563_49834c-7c dynamic-main-col\"><div class=\"kt-inside-inner-col\">\n<p>Roshell&nbsp;Brown&nbsp;decided&nbsp;to pursue a master\u2019s degree at Wilmington University&nbsp;on the day she earned her bachelor\u2019s here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAt the graduation ceremony in May 2018, I saw the master\u2019s candidates all lined up, and a lot of them looked like me,\u201d she says. \u201cI thought, \u2018If they can do it, I can<br>too.\u2019\u201d&nbsp;She\u2019d decided to complete her&nbsp;bachelor\u2019s degree after the first of her&nbsp;three children enrolled at WilmU. She was in her mid-30s and working two jobs at the time. Higher education had been a longtime goal, although it was a goal that most people wouldn\u2019t&nbsp;expect a single parent from one of the&nbsp;poorest areas of Virginia to achieve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cMy educational journey has been tremendous,\u201d says Brown. \u201cLife is not always simple, but you decide your own destiny. While it\u2019s easy to take the easier route, that doesn\u2019t always get you where you want to go.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Growing up in rural Accomack County, Virginia, on the tail end of the Delmarva peninsula, Brown earned good grades in school. She also gave birth to her first child before age 16. The second arrived before her high school graduation. Virginia Tech offered her a full scholarship, but she declined the opportunity. \u201cI would love to have gone to college, but I wanted to raise my children,\u201d&nbsp;she says. \u201cI didn\u2019t want someone else&nbsp;doing it for me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite her limited job prospects and a failed marriage, Brown planned a future. \u201cI felt like a lot of people just wrote me off,\u201d she says. \u201cI always knew in my heart that I had potential. It just wasn\u2019t looking like it. But if I was ever going to get any further, if I wanted a change, I knew I\u2019d have to get an education.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At a local community college, she earned an associate degree in Business Management, then studied online with WilmU to build it into a bachelor\u2019s degree. Her Master of Science in Management with a concentration in Human Resource Management, also online, followed in December 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group alignwide wu-blockquote-row is-nowrap is-layout-flex wp-container-core-group-is-layout-ad2f72ca wp-block-group-is-layout-flex\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote wu-blockquote-simple is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\u201cMy goals the whole time were to make a better life and to set an example for my children.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<cite>\u2014 Roshell Brown<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI pushed through when my children \u2014 who are my everything \u2014 said \u2018I need more of your time,\u2019 even when I felt like quitting. I guess I\u2019m stubborn that way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She recalls the final months of her master\u2019s program, attending to coursework while teaching her middle-school daughter through the COVID year. \u201cI managed the challenges as best as I could,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen I stayed up late to write papers for classes, she\u2019d try to stay up late with me. I\u2019d find her curled up under the dining room table with her blanket.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Brown credits the University community for her academic and career success, including her job at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, where she\u2019s been a loan analyst since 2019. According to WilmU\u2019s Dr. Regina Allen-Sharpe, though, these successes were largely the work of Roshell Brown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThere were a lot of people behind the scenes, but she\u2019s the one who showed up and did all the work,\u201d says Dr. Allen-Sharpe, dean of students and assistant vice president of student affairs, who, like Brown, grew up on Virginia\u2019s eastern shore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cShe\u2019s overcome incredible&nbsp;hurdles,\u201d says Dr. Allen-Sharpe. \u201cAll the research says this woman is not supposed to succeed. Plus, we had a pandemic! In the midst of this chaos, a master\u2019s degree has changed this woman\u2019s life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Roshell Brown still lives in Accomack County, though a lot of things have changed since she attended high school there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThere have been times in my life I\u2019ve felt ashamed,\u201d she says, \u201cbut looking at what I\u2019ve accomplished, I\u2019m just amazed. It\u2019s been a blessing. And my options are open. There\u2019s a lot more on the horizon for me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She\u2019s weighing the possibility of mentoring in the local schools \u2014 \u201cI would like to see more people from my community succeed,\u201d she says \u2014 but her chief concern right now is keeping her daughter on track through high school and encouraging her interest in STEM careers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cShe knows that success is possible, because she\u2019s seen me succeed,\u201d says Brown. \u201cI want to see her succeed. It\u2019s never too late.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>\u2014David Bernard<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Roshell&nbsp;Brown&nbsp;decided&nbsp;to pursue a master\u2019s degree at Wilmington University&nbsp;on the day she earned her bachelor\u2019s here. \u201cAt the graduation ceremony in May 2018, I saw the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":3567,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","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":[145,135],"tags":[626],"class_list":["post-3563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni-news","category-magazine","tag-magazine-fall-2021"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":145,"label":"ALUMNI NEWS"},{"value":135,"label":"MAGAZINE"}],"post_tag":[{"value":626,"label":"Magazine Fall 2021"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/Rochelle-Brown-328x480.jpg",328,480,true],"author_info":{"display_name":"Rachel Marchione","author_link":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/author\/rachel\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":145,"name":"ALUMNI NEWS","slug":"alumni-news","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":702,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":113,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":145,"category_count":113,"category_description":"","cat_name":"ALUMNI NEWS","category_nicename":"alumni-news","category_parent":0},{"term_id":135,"name":"MAGAZINE","slug":"magazine","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":692,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":431,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":135,"category_count":431,"category_description":"","cat_name":"MAGAZINE","category_nicename":"magazine","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":626,"name":"Magazine Fall 2021","slug":"magazine-fall-2021","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":1183,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":23,"filter":"raw"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3563","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\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3563"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17502,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3563\/revisions\/17502"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wilmu.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}