10/07/2026
“I heard a radio commercial for Germanna when my son was about six months old. It said, ‘Be who you want to be.’ At that time, I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I was a stay-at-home dad. I’d only had retail jobs or part-time jobs. I wanted to figure out how to make my son proud of me, to show him education is important. And it turns out it can change your life.
“I was not a well-behaved kid. I was born with fetal alcohol syndrome. I have a learning disability. That has been a huge part of my life. I also wasn’t accepted for who I was. My mindset as a youth was, ‘If you don’t like me, I’m going to give you a reason not to.’ I felt safe at Germanna to really be myself. I felt supported.
“I’d gone to a four-year university in Kentucky right out of high school. Kentucky is where I’m from. I lasted two years. I always tell students that if I had gone to a community college first, I would have had an associate degree. I had nothing for my time except a lot of debt.
“At Germanna, I decided to start fresh. I was an older student—32 or 33. I went part-time and worked for Anita Newhouse in Admissions as a work-study student. She is by far one of my favorite humans. I got really involved. I co-founded the Sexuality and Gender Alliance. Being a student makes you the most important person on campus. If there is something you need that can help better your experience or education, you should be able to advocate for it. I would always say, ‘One day, I want to work for Germanna. I want to be here.’
“I graduated in 2020 and started working for the bookstore on campus. I worked there for not even a year when Anita texted me and said, ‘I have this position in Admissions. Would you like to join the team again?’ I worked in the kiosk. We called it the fishbowl. There was plexiglass around it because of the pandemic, and we joked it looked like a fishbowl. I would say, ‘If you want to drop a treat down, go ahead.’
“After that, I became an admissions coach—it’s called onboard specialist now. Around 2023, my supervisor at the time asked if recruitment was something I would be interested in. I said, ‘Absolutely!’ I get to be on campus and talk to people about Germanna. I say I’m the best example of what a recruiter should be because I’ve lived it. I’m able to talk from my own perspective. I tell them this the experience you can have at Germanna if you want it.
“When a student says they don’t think they can do it, I share my experience with them. I tell them, ‘Hey, I completely get it. I’ve been there. You can do it.’ When it comes to belonging, I tell them that of all the places I’ve ever been—and I’ve gotten to go to quite a few—Germanna is by far the best institution I have ever seen.
“I have a huge passion for our students because I know what they’ve been through. A lot of people at Germanna have that passion. It seems like we all come to Germanna having an adventure beforehand that led us here for a purpose. Everything about Germanna has changed my life. I’ve been able to live. I never in a million years thought I would love my job. I didn’t think that was a thing because my parents hated their jobs.
“To be able to have a home, vehicles, the things that are necessities to live, and to be able to provide that for my son—I didn’t know I’d have that. Now my son calls Germanna ‘Daddy’s College.’”
—Jessie Harper, Germanna Recruiter
