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PHOENIX January 27, 2009 –
Jake Harris and Kaylen Miller, representing Paradise Valley Community College on the prestigious All-Arizona Academic Team, have each been named to the state's top team. This is the first time PVCC has had two students on the first team. Each receives a two-year tuition waiver to any of Arizona's three universities and a chance to compete for scholarship money and a place on a National All-USA Team. The First, Second and Third All-USA teams are announced in an April issue of USA TODAY and recipients will be honored at the annual American Association of Community Colleges convention, being held in Phoenix.
After graduating from Cactus Shadows High School, Jake Harris wrangled cattle, trained horses and worked construction. Now, this 31-year-old, Paradise Valley Community College student is an All-Arizona Academic team member.
Going to college right after high school wasn't an option, Harris says. But his parents, Jeanne and Brad Harris, who work in the Cave Creek post office, are supportive of his career goals. After a few years and several jobs, he registered at PVCC. While taking anthropology and biology courses, he found his passion -- paleoanthropology, the study of ancient humans.
Harris maintains a 4.0 average, while working as a math tutor in the PVCC Student Learning Center. In his free time, he likes to hang glide, surf, kite board, play guitar or piano, and sing at open mike venues around the Valley. Harris wants to research in Africa or South East Asia and then pursue his doctorate.
"When I heard about the scholarship I started to cry," Kaylen Miller says. "School is my passion. Half the reason I want to be a teacher is so I can stay in school."
Miller, 39, took 64 credits in one year and maintained a 4.0 average. She credits PVCC's College Success course, which is part of the iStartSmart program for new students, for providing vital coping tools.
She moved to Phoenix a year-and-a-half ago from a small town outside Sydney. Miller says she left Australia looking for a "second chance," far away from the fundamentalist religion she was raised in, where pursuing higher education was discouraged and studying science and evolution was forbidden.
Miller volunteers teaching ESL students at Palomino Elementary School. She plans to use her tuition waiver prize for a Bachelor of Arts in Education at Arizona State University West in the newly formed Professional Development School, a partnership between PVCC, Paradise Valley Unified School District and ASU West. An immersion program for new teachers, candidates graduate in May 2010 with extensive classroom experience.
Harris' and Miller's application essays are judged at the state and national levels by the Phi Theta Kappa society. USA Today, the American Association of Community Colleges and Phi Theta Kappa will honor and reveal the national winners in April.
