Jeanne Heroux - Cape Cod Community College Alumni Association

2008 Alumni of the Year - Jeanne Heroux '95

Photo: Jeanne Heroux at left and Professor/Dr. Janie Bostick, University of Missouri

Presentation given at 2008 Commencement:

The person we honor today transformed what could well have been a very bleak future into one we celebrate today, and she did it with great determination and perseverance.

In 1990, it wasn't easy...first one...then two...then three courses...then finally entry into the Nursing Program – ending with High Honors and an Associate of Science Degree in Nursing in 1995. While at the College, excellence was always her goal, and she achieved it repeatedly including serving as President of the College's chapter of the International Honor Society, Phi Theta Kappa.

She was awarded the Chancellor's Scholarship to attend the University of Massachusetts–Boston, free tuition! But it was not to be. With no transportation to Boston and young children on the Cape, the Bachelor's Degree in Nursing was not possible...until – five years later - a new "2 + 2" program partnership with UMass-Boston brought that degree to campus. She graduated again with High Honors.

As a single parent with a daughter entering college and an another daughter attending CCCC, graduate school seemed impossible, but she would overcome this barrier as well. Over a four year period of completely online study, coupled with 500-plus hours of clinical work at Outer Cape Health Services and at Cape Cod Hospital, she earned her Mental Health Nurse Practitioner/Psychiatric Clinical Nurse Specialist Masters Degree.

Currently, she's employed as a mental health practitioner at Cape Cod Hospital, has been a collaborator with the State's Department of Mental Health, and has been published in the Journal of Nursing Scholarship. There is so much more to tell, but her own words say it best...

"I have accomplished many things since I graduated from 4Cs; it was that diploma, and the events leading up to it, that gave me the confidence to go where I have today. No words are truer than these are: "Start here and you can take your life anywhere." I am just getting started!!!"

With such enthusiasm for the College, and such excellence in scholarship and life itself, we are proud to honor tonight our Alumna of the Year 2008, Jeannie Heroux.