Sometimes it helps students to hear “I’ve been there” from adults. At least, that’s what Ronda McLelland has found as she has worked with students in TRIO Programs, first at Ozarka College in Melbourne and now at the University of Arkansas Community College at Batesville.
TRIO Programs are federal outreach and student-services programs set up to help disadvantaged students overcome economic, social, academic and cultural barriers and achieve an education. McLelland was a TRIO student herself, and she worked in the Ozarka College TRIO Program for eight years before recently taking the job as director of the UACCB TRIO Student Support Services.
“TRIO is a federal grant,” McLelland said. “We work with low-income, first-generation college students, so neither one of their parents has a bachelor’s degree. We work with those students so that they can be successful in college so that they can get that bachelor’s degree.”
Like all TRIO students, McLelland was the first in her family to earn a bachelor’s degree, and she said that before she started school, she wasn’t even sure if she could do it.
McLelland moved to Arkansas from Illinois in 1994. Her parents were originally from Arkansas, and after her father died, she and her mother moved to Batesville.
“My mother relocated to this area, so I moved to be a little closer to her,” McLelland said. “I wanted to be with her and to have that family support because I was a single mom at the time.”
While working at Pizza Hut, McLelland met her husband, Monte. He was the one who encouraged her to go to college, even to the point of making her an appointment to meet with student services at Ozarka College.
“My husband actually started this whole thing,” she said. “He said that out of both of us, I was way smarter, so he wanted to send me to school. He was very supportive. His first question to me was, ‘What have you always wanted to do?’ and I told him I wanted to teach.”
Now that McLelland works with a lot of first-generation students, she said it makes a difference when they have supportive family members like her husband.
“Oftentimes, they don’t understand why you want to go to school,” she said. “My kids didn’t. They didn’t understand why my husband was telling them to leave Mommy alone during finals week. It was difficult at times, but it’s so important to have a good support system. I’m very lucky to have a supportive husband.”
McLelland started working toward her associate degree at Ozarka College in 2002 and completed the degree in 2005. After that, she finished her bachelor’s degree at Lyon College. She said the encouragement from the people in the Ozarka TRIO office gave her the right mindset to go to Lyon.
“The people in TRIO actually made me believe I could go to Lyon,” she said. “Before that, never in a million years did I believe I could go to Lyon College. They did everything to be supportive to help me go there.”
She finished her bachelor’s degree in education in 2008, then went back to Ozarka to work in the TRIO office. It was then that McLelland — the same woman who needed a push from her husband to enroll at Ozarka and then didn’t believe she could get a degree at Lyon College — went on to earn her master’s degree.
“My TRIO director — who was actually my adviser when I was a student — and one of my mentors suggested I go ahead and get my master’s degree. I finally broke down and got my master’s degree in educational psychology. I focus a lot on how we learn and how we process information, as well as assessments.”
In her time with TRIO programs, McLelland said she has seen several students flourish because of the TRIO counseling and encouragement. Her new office at UACCB is decorated with an array of Mickey Mouse items, including several paintings by a former student she worked with at Ozarka. He is one of two students who McLelland said are her most recent success stories.
“They both have graduated from Lyon College,” she said. “They went to my alma mater, which makes me very proud. They continue to work for TRIO at Ozarka as professional tutors. Usually, when students leave and go on to get their bachelor’s, that’s the last we see of them unless they come back to say hello. Those two actually love working with the TRIO grant so much and love working with students so much that they’re considering this as their chosen career.”
McLelland started her new job at UACCB on May 6, so she said she is using the summer to get to know the culture of the college and prepare for the fall.
“I’ve gotten to know a few students,” she said. “Fall is our busiest time of the year. We’ve got students coming in and freshman orientation. We also go to the classrooms to tell them about our program. We’ll spend a lot of time doing that.”
She is also planning several excursions for the TRIO students, including a trip to Little Rock to see the Arkansas State Capitol, Heifer International and the Clinton Presidential Library.
“We want them to be well-rounded when they graduate,” she said. “We are also planning transfer trips. Since we are a two-year institution, we work with students who plan on transferring to a four-year school. We work with them to make sure the classes they’re taking can transfer with them so they’re not wasting time or money, and then we actually take them to the other campuses to give them a tour of the facility and meet with an adviser. The goal is to make that transition as seamless as possible.”
Outside of work, McLelland said, she is an avid reader and a movie buff. Her oldest son, Michael, is autistic, and watching movies together is one way she can connect with him on a regular basis.
“We’re the people who sit in the theater and watch the credits all the way through at the end of the movie,” she said.
McLelland also has a bucket list of things she wants to do. First of all, she wants to visit Europe sometime in her life. She is also working on running a 5K race, and she wants to “let things go for a day” to see what it is like not to plan out and organize every aspect of her life.
That last bucket-list item might be the most difficult, though. Her office is fun and inviting, yet there is still an obvious structure with color coding and reminders everywhere. Those traits help her daily as she works with students in the TRIO Program, and she said she is excited to get to know people this summer and really hit the ground running in the fall.
“We want you to be successful,” she said. “That’s the whole point, to change your life. It changed my whole life.”
Staff writer Angela Spencer can be reached at (501) 244-4307 or aspencer@arkansasonline.com.