KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Graduating college takes more work than many students realize. And if they are working at the same time while raising a family, it takes a lot more work.
One University of Tennessee graduate is proving that it is not impossible to succeed, though. Ashley Humphrey will graduate Dec. 13, and most of the people who were at her side during her journey will be there except for one person — Garth Brooks.
He signed her graduation cap when she went to his concert in Neyland Stadium on Nov. 16. And on graduation day, Humphrey will throw it into the air to celebrate earning a Bachelor's degree in English, with a concentration in technical communications.
It will not be a degree in debating like Brooks thought she was working towards when she convinced him to sign her cap during his show. He did not want to start a precedent for signing things, but she convinced him.
“Well, not everyone here is graduating,” Humphrey said to Brooks. He asked if she majored in debate. "No, I'm married with two kids," she said.
And the 33-year-old nontraditional student persevered through more than just raising a family. She dropped out of college three times — once in 2004, again in 2006, and finally in 2008. During that time, she worked as a restaurant server and pharmacy technician.
She was trying to break a pattern of poverty that she saw in her family. And stopping that cycle meant Workin' for a Livin'.
“When I was a single mom and my son was an infant, I was crying one day and I promised him I would do whatever it takes to make our lives better,” Humphrey said in a press release.
First, she graduated from Roane State Community College and enrolled at UT for the 2015 fall semester. Once there, she worked as an assistant in a research lab before becoming an editor for protocols.io, a service for researchers to record and share their methods.
Her perseverance caught the eye of one of her professors, Russel Hirst. He asked her to work as an editorial liaison for a special issue of the International Journal of Nuclear Security, which focused on women in nuclear security.
Along with her work in academia, her studies and her family, she also promotes a scholarship fund which she also helped launch. The fund is in the name of a high school friend, Anthony Ward, who died in January 2017 from a pulmonary embolism.
They were nontraditional students together.
"I hope the scholarship can take the weight off nontraditional students in their quest to do better for themselves and their kids,” Humphrey said in a press release. “Being a Volunteer is about giving your time. You want to do better for those who will come after you."
They graduated from Roane State the same year as she did. His stole and tassel will be underneath her gown while she crosses the stage. And on top of her head will be the cap that Garth Brooks signed.
“If there’s one thing that college has taught me about myself,” Humphrey said in a press release, “it’s that I can rebound like Wilt Chamberlain.”