Page 36 - Robeson Living

Paying It Forward

at RCC

Pictured (left to right) RCC alumna Janice Oxendine, potential students Brittany Lewis and Darlene
Johnson, and RCC recruiter Patricia Locklear

When Janice Oxendine graduated from Pembroke Senior tory. “Evelyn Hunt and Betty Biggs were great cosmetolo-
High School in 1977, she, like many high school graduates gy instructors,” Oxendine says. Dr. Sylvester Wooten and a
in Robeson County of that era, wanted to get a “factory” Ms. Falls helped her get through her math classes. Oxendine
job. Her mother wanted her to continue school by taking credits long-time science instructor Shelia Regan for her in
secretarial classes. They compromised. Oxendine enrolled success in Biology. Oxendine says she has forgotten a lot of
at what was then Robeson Technical Institute in 1978 and the names, but not the experiences that she had at Robeson
earned a cosmetology degree in 1980, but she did more Community College. “I just felt like I was in my place of
than earn a degree. She formed relationships. She formed learning,” she says, touting the small classes and personal
relationships with other students, with instructors, with experience she received.
staff, and with the institution itself as she kept coming
back. She earned Nursing Assistant 1 and 2 certifications However, it wasn’t just the instructors and classes that Oxen-
in 1988 and 1989 under Ms. Cribb and an associate degree dine remembers. She met Brenda McKinney, a staff member
in college transfer in 1997 that allowed her to transfer to who worked in the college’s student services area, and who
UNCP that fall. was from the same community as Oxendine. Oxendine cred-
its McKinney for encouraging her to persist with her studies.
The stories Oxendine tells about the folks that help her Oxendine says many of her friends today are people she met
along the way read like a Who’s Who of the college’s his- while she was attending Robeson Community College, in-