Persisting With Help From Community

Persisting With Help From Community

Transitioning to college from high school can be difficult for many first-year students. Being away from home, making new friends, having more freedom and responsibilities can be overwhelming. Because of Covid, that transition was made even more di cult for students who started college in the fall of 2020.

Jamichael Turman was a freshman in 2020. He is from Tyler, Texas, and the oldest of five children. He played football as a running back and eventually served as team captain during his senior season. Despite challenges as a freshman and even greater challenges later, he built resilience, persisted, and graduated in May with a bachelor's degree in mathematics.

Many students, Jamichael included, reported feeling isolated during the fall of 2020 due to precautions in place to slow the spread of the virus. Students were physically distanced, masked, tested regularly, and sometimes quarantined. Athletic practices looked much different for the incoming student-athletes, with split practices to keep group sizes small.

This situation was not unique to McPherson College. However, the college’s response to this situation and retention challenges, in general, may be unique. In 2014, the college partnered with the Kansas Leadership Center, training in its leadership competencies. The college began to look at retention as an adaptive rather than a technical challenge. The campus learned from working with KLC that retaining students is everyone’s responsibility. The college’s work on retention continues today with its partnership with the ESSDACK Resilience Team.

“We didn’t get the full college experience because of Covid,” Turman said. “It was hard to make friends freshman year, but I always knew I had brothers on the football team that I could fall back on and talk to when things felt hard.”

Head Football Coach Jeremiah Fiscus understood that during this unusual time, he would need to be intentional about building a culture among the football team. During the fall of 2020, he paired new players with older team members, players from rural areas with players from bigger cities, and put players together who didn’t seem to have much in common. Their assignment was to ask a list of assigned questions to get to know each other.

“They were assigned homework every weekend,” Coach Fiscus said. “They had to find a place and time to meet and talk to each other. The coaches decided that culture had to be focused on as much as talent. We intentionally made a reason for the connections to happen, but those connections continued, and the players truly found reasons to talk with each other. Leaders emerged from those conversations.”

It became easier for Jamichael to enlarge his circle of friends after sophomore year, and he took advantage of campus activities to find friends outside of the football team. But it was during his junior year when his mother passed away, that he felt the deep support from his community.

“I called Coach Fiscus when I found out. It was late, and he answered right away. He stayed on the phone, texting me all night,” Turman said. “He told me to take care of my family and not to worry about school.”

Jamichael said he felt everyone he knew on campus was closer to him going through that loss. Faculty members helped him make up his missed classwork and tests. Coaches and teammates cared for him with support and prayers. Even the lady in the cafeteria who greeted him each morning made a difference to him.

“It really helped knowing I had family here,” he said. “I wanted to come back and finish my degree because I knew that was what my mom wanted me to do.”

Attending a college in a smaller community was important to Jamichael, who wanted to get away from the traffic and feel of a big city. It was one of the reasons he decided to attend McPherson College. He made connections in the community by staying over the summer and earning money for his education through the Student Debt Project. Dave Barrett, McPherson College advancement officer and a mentor in the debt project, helped him find employment with the McPherson summer basketball league.

“I reached out to Jamichael to o er support at whatever level I could,” Barrett said. “He was willing to work evenings after finishing his full-time job. He’s a person that wants to do good things and wants to honor his mom.”

The McPherson College community support extended to Turman’s hometown in Texas with alumni raising money for the family after his mom’s passing. And Barrett’s support has continued with conversations about the future and encouraging Turman to think big. After graduating Turman is hoping to seek further education to become an accountant.

With an entire campus committed to supporting students and learning more about how to help students build resilience, Turman advises future Bulldogs to lean into the resources available on campus, both academic and social.

“It’s easy to make friends and be successful, especially with all of the resources the college offers,” Turman said. “I would tell future students not to be scared to join the community. Don’t isolate yourself and trust the process.