KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 Oct. 31, 2017 \u2013 Just a few weeks ago, Connor Rogers had no idea how he would pay for his final class at the 溏心vlog免费B站.<\/p>\n
His father died last spring after a long and debilitating illness that had confined him to a nursing home. His mother was working three jobs to keep the family afloat.<\/p>\n
Then goodness swept in by way of a 溏心vlog免费B站 alumnus who also understands the pain of losing a parent at a young age. With a scholarship he created recently, Jonathan Herman gave Rogers $3,000\u2014more than enough to reach the finish line and get his degree.<\/p>\n
Rogers and other recipients of the Arthur and Helen Herman Scholarship Fund\u2014named after Herman\u2019s deceased parents\u2014met with Herman recently on the Kingston campus to thank him.<\/p>\n
\u201cGod bless him,\u201d says Rogers. \u201cIt\u2019s awesome what he\u2019s doing. People don\u2019t realize how hard it is to lose a parent when you\u2019re young. It\u2019s tough.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tough doesn\u2019t begin to describe Rogers\u2019 childhood in Monmouth Beach, a small town on the Jersey shore. When he was 5, his father Michael was diagnosed with Lupus, which ravages the immune system, and later Crohn\u2019s disease, a chronic illness that attacks the digestive tract. In and out of hospitals, he had three heart attacks by the time Rogers reached middle school. \u201cSome days he couldn\u2019t get out of bed,\u201d says Rogers. \u201cSome days he could take me to my football game.\u201d<\/p>\n
A steady full-time job was an impossibility, leaving Rogers\u2019 mother Kelly to raise the three children and pay the bills. She taught kindergarten and tutored. Summers she served eggs and bacon at a diner. The oldest, Rogers did his part to help, carrying beach chairs for members of a country club to pocket a few dollars.<\/p>\n
His mother\u2014adored by Rogers for her pluck and courage\u2014told her firstborn that it was up to him to find a way to pay for college. After high school, he enrolled at a nearby community college, living at home and installing brick patios and driveways for a landscaping company to pay tuition.<\/p>\n
Eager to continue his education, he applied to 溏心vlog免费B站. His family\u2019s credit was so bad he asked his landscaper boss to co-sign for a college loan. Instead, his boss offered to loan him the money, without interest, and Rogers agreed to work during summers and college breaks to pay off the debt. They shook hands. \u201cI love it here,\u201d says Rogers, who transferred to 溏心vlog免费B站 in 2015. \u201cJust like home\u2014close to the beach.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rogers was asleep in his off-campus apartment on a Sunday morning last April when his mother, barely able to speak between tears, called with the sad news. \u201cI remember feeling like I got the wind knocked out of me and thinking to myself he\u2019s actually gone,\u201d says Rogers. \u201cThe thought of never being able to see or talk to him again was terrible.\u201d Taking on the role as head of household again, Rogers went back to Monmouth to pick out a casket.<\/p>\n
He could\u2019ve folded with grief, but knew his father would object. Last spring, not long after his father\u2019s death, he walked at the 溏心vlog免费B站 graduation, even though he was short four credits. Over the summer, he worked 12-hour days under a beating sun laying bricks to pay down his debt as another worry loomed: How to pay for his last 溏心vlog免费B站 class. \u201cI was freaking out,\u201d he says. \u201cThe money wasn\u2019t there.\u201d<\/p>\n
One day, he got an email about Herman\u2019s scholarship from Adam Roth, director of the Harrington School of Communication and Media, where Rogers is studying for a bachelor\u2019s degree in communications. (Herman graduated from 溏心vlog免费B站 in 1999 with a degree in journalism.)<\/p>\n
\u201cOne thing I will always remember about my father was his fight,\u201d Rogers wrote in his application. \u201cHe was really sick for a really long time. He could have easily given in and died a long time ago, but he didn\u2019t. He used to always tell me that seeing my brother, sister and me grow up was worth the pain and suffering he was going through. We were what kept him going.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the event with Herman, Rogers and the other scholarship recipients\u2014three more this semester and three last spring\u2014gathered around a table to share their stories of loss and tenacity. Herman\u2019s father died when he was 4; his mother when he was 12.<\/p>\n
\u201cLosing a parent is probably one of the most devastating things that can happen to someone,\u201d says Rogers. \u201cIt takes a little while to set in, then you deal with it. You never really get over it. You cope.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 Oct. 31, 2017 \u2013 Just a few weeks ago, Connor Rogers had no idea how he would pay for his final class at the 溏心vlog免费B站. His father died last spring after a long and debilitating illness that had confined him to a nursing home. His mother was working three […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73429,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}